So I was wondering, words with 'ie' like believe, achieve, piece are they pronounced with a long vowel sound because they end with 'e'? Or because its an 'ie'? I know it's a stupid useless questions but you know... yeah I know its very unnecessary but whatever.
Thanks in advance

A lot of the words are derived from foreign languages. In many of those countries, the first vowel is silent. However, in other words the second vowel is silent. BAIT. Long A, silent I. Streak-silent A. In German, for example, BIER, beer, is pronounced BEER. WEIN, wine, is pronounced WINE (actually the W is more V. A trick in WWII was to use passwords with W because the Germans would use V. Wagon Wheels would be pronounced Vagon Veels.