In many cases, words with “ie” or “ei” confuse English learners on what to bring first before the other and end up miss positioning the letters. You may try to master word per word where the two letters come next to each other, which is good dedication to learning but there is a clever way. There is a rule that can help learners master the exact position for each letter (i or e) in any word: The famous rule is “i” before “e” except after “c”. The rule simply means that whenever the two letters have to appear next to each other in a word, you write “i” first, then followed by “e” (for example in the word “believe”) but when the letter before “ie” is “c”, “e” comes first, followed by the “i” (as is in the word “receive”). By this rule, we write “ie” in “sieve” and “chief” but write “ei” in “deceit” and “perceive”. You will also write “ie” in “piece” and “fierce” but write “ei” in “ceiling”. However, when the “ei” makes the long “a” sound in a word (such as in the word “wait”), the rule is broken. For example in words such as in “neighbor”, “weigh”, “beige” and “rein” this is because there is a long “a” sound for “ei”. There are several exceptional words in this whole rule which include, science, species efficient, seize, vein, their foreign weird, and caffeine.
