How to Win at Hangman

Hangman is a good game to help you understand the structure of English words. If you understand the structure, you can use logic to win at Hangman.

Words are made from syllables. For example:

• '"hotel" has 2 syllables: ho-tel
• "America" has 4 syllables: A-mer-i-ca
• "bearable" has 3 syllables: bear-a-ble

Every syllable contains at least one or two vowels (a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y). A syllable can consist of a single vowel alone (for example, i in A-mer-i-ca). But a syllable cannot consist of a single consonant alone. This is true for all English words.

So it is usually a good idea to start Hangman with vowels. You would probably want one vowel for every three or four letters in the word. When you think you have all the vowels for the word, you can start looking for consonants.

The most common letters in English are, in this order:

e t a o i n s r h d l u

The vowels are:

a e i o u

The consonants are:

b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x y z