Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 1: Spelling
• Problem words in English
• Tips
• Warnings
• Additional articles

Spelling of the English language is a sore subject for many of those who study it. The same sound can be recorded in several different ways at once! Remember that famous example when the word “ghoti” is pronounced “fish”? And there you just need to gh pronounce as in tough, o as in women, and ti as in nation. If all these subtleties plunge you into discouragement - this article is ready to lend you a helping hand and explain a couple of difficult points!

Steps

Method 1 of 1: Spelling

1. 1 Learn the spelling rules. There are rhymes and rules by which children are taught spelling, but, alas, there are exceptions to them, and therefore you should not rely solely on them. However, if you do not know how to spell a word, they may be useful.
   • Write “i” before “e” unless it's after “c” or when it sounds like a long “a” (like eighty or weigh).
     • This rule does not apply to the word weird.
     • Other exceptions: either, leisure, protein, their.
     • Words ending in -cien also fall outside this rule: ancient, efficient, science.
     • Words containing the syllable -eig, which does not sound like "ay", also fall out of this rule: height, foreign.
   • As the saying goes, “When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.”. When two vowels are side by side, the first becomes long, and the second ... silent. So, for example, in the word boat there is an “o”, but the letter “a” is not pronounced. Therefore, when you are not sure which letter to write first, say the word to yourself and write a long sound first. Examples: team, mean, wait. Exceptions: you, phoenix, great.
   • The spelling of a word does not change from the addition of a prefix, even if it turns out that there will be two identical letters next to it. Examples: misspell, misstep, preeminent, unnecessary.
   • Remember how the plural forms of nouns ending in “y”. If there is a vowel before “y” (a, e, i, o, u), then the plural form is formed with the addition of “s”. Examples: toy - toys; buoy - buoys. If there is a consonant before “y”, then the plural form of the word is formed with the addition of the ending “ies”. Examples: lady - ladies, ferry - ferries. The same rule applies to the present tense verbs of the third person singular: He / she carries, he / she marries, he / she worries.
2. 2 Remember difficult words. Of course, it's good when you have an editor with amazing spelling knowledge, or at least a spell checker module in a text editor. And if not? Then you will have to carefully look at all those words in which you usually make mistakes. At the end of the article there will be a list of words where mistakes are most often made - you can check with it.
3. 3 Speak the words. Some words are spelled the same way as they are pronounced. Alas, there are not many of them. Many difficult and problematic words necessarily hide silent vowels or consonants. You can find them if you pronounce the word almost by letter. Example: Say the word “beautiful” like “Bee - a --- ooooootiful” (prefix beau French), put the stress on "a", which is usually not pronounced and therefore is often omitted in writing. And there are some words where the sound is not pronounced simply because everyone is used to it: "interesting" instead of "interesting "or" comfortable "instead of" comoratable "). Get in the habit of pronouncing words correctly, not missing vowels and consonants in the wrong places, and you will immediately notice how your spelling will improve.
4. 4 Make a sentence (the funnier the better). According to the sentence, you can always remember the peculiarities of the spelling of the word. Example: I want accommodation in castles and mansions will remind you that accommodation has two “c” and the same “m”.
5. 5 Don't forget about homonyms and homophones. Homonyms sound and write the same, have different meanings (bank - bank - bank). Homophones are pronounced the same, but they are spelled differently (night and knight), and their meaning is different.
   • Words and particles such as "two," "to," and "too" are often confused; "and" and "end"; "here" and "hear"; "eight" and "ate"; "wear," "ware," and "where"; "lose" and "loose"; and "sent," "scent," and "cent."
6. 6 Be aware of the “paired sounds traveling out”. These are unusual combinations of consonants, where one of the sounds is not pronounced, but, as it were, “leaves” at the expense of the other. For example:
   • gn, pn, kn = n (as in gnome, pneumonia, knife)
   • hr, wr = r (as in rhyme, wrestle)
   • pt, gt = t (as in ptomaine, height)
   • PS, SC = s (as in psychic, science)
   • wh = h (as in 'whole')
7. 7 Use mnemonic techniques. Try to come up with some clues-associations for words in which you are constantly mistaken. For example:
   • Desert and dessert. Why are there two “s” in the dessert? Because you always want another portion.
   • Missing “a” in “separate”? Remember that this word has “a rat”.
   • When “stationery” is with “e”, it's about envelopes. When with "a" (stationary), it is about something arrested and motionless.
   • Loose has a lot of "o" because there is a lot of space. And in lose there is one “o”, because the second one was lost!
8. 8 Look for affixes and words in words. For example, “together” is broken into “to-get-her”. Why is there “together”, even the 14-letter monster “hypothyroidism” can be memorized in this way, decomposing it into one prefix, one full word and one suffix: “hypo - thyroid - ism”. And “hypo” and “ism” are two very common affixes that appear here and there. By learning how to highlight such affixes, you will improve your spelling.
9. 9 Remember that the pronunciation of prefixes can vary from word to word. So, “meta-” in “metabolism”, “metaphor” and “metabolic” are pronounced differently. A different pronunciation can be observed even in the same root words, more tgo - even the stress can change, as, for example, in Japan and Japanese.
10. 10 Practice. Make a list of words where you most often make mistakes, and spell these words correctly 10-20 times. Work through each word: say it, highlight the syllables, think about what spelling rules they obey. Thus, you will train your brain and hands to write and perceive the word correctly. You can check yourself with dictation - and do not forget to work on mistakes!
11. 11 Write the word whose spelling you want to learn, highlighting mute sounds with a different color or capital letter. Speak a word, look at it, write it down - and you will remember it ... sooner or later.
12. 12 Use your finger to write words - running on paper, a table, or even on the sand. The more senses you engage, the better. So SPEAK, LISTEN, SEE AND FEEL the word.
13. 13 Check the spelling of someone else's work. One of the best ways to learn something is to explain the material to another person. Train yourself to pay attention to other people's spelling and look for mistakes (even in books). You can start by editing Wikihow articles - and don't forget to register!
14. 14 Don't forget the apostrophes. Alas, the misuse of apostrophes remains a harsh reality today. So, remember: an apostrophe with “s” is a possessive (semantic, not a grammatical category) or contraction (it is -> it’s). Possessiveness: "The banana's skin turned brown". Abbreviation: "The banana's too mushy". But for the formation of plural nouns, the apostrophe is not needed. So, in the sentence “Special on banana’s: 49 cents.” it is absolutely superfluous.

Problem words in English

Wrong spelling	Correct writing
acheive	achieve
adress	address
alot	a lot
athiest	atheist
beggining	beginning
beleive	believe
bisness	business
catagory	category
colledge	college
committment	commitment
concieve	conceive
copywrite	copyright
decaffinated	decaffeinated
decathalon	decathlon
definately	definitely
desireable	desirable
diety	deity dinning dining
dissapoint	disappoint
dispell	dispel
embarass	embarrass
enviroment	environment
expresso	espresso excercise exercise
extremly	extremely
facist	fascist
Febuary	February
flourescent	fluorescent
fourty	forty
freind	friend
guage	gauge
goverment	government
grammer	grammar
harrass	harass
hemorage	hemorrhage
heros	heroes
hieght, heigth	height
hygeine	hygiene
independance	independence
inate	innate
innoculate	inoculate
irregardless	regardless
it's	its (possessive pronoun)
judgment	judgment
knowlege	knowledge
lazer	laser
libary	library
lightening	lightning
loose	lose (misplaced something)
lose	loose (untie something)
maintainance	maintenance
managable	manageable
midevil	medieval
millenium	millennium
mischievious	mischievous
mispell	misspell
mit	mitt
monestary	monastery
monkies	monkeys
morgage	mortgage
mountian	mountain
neccessary	necessary
neice	niece
nickle	nickel
nineth	ninth
ninty	ninety
noone	no one or no-one
noticable	noticeable occassion occasion
occured	occurred
occurence	occurrence
oppurtunity	opportunity
origianal	original
paralell	parallel
pasttime	pastime
pavillion	pavilion
peice	piece
percieve	perceive
perserverance	perseverance
persue	pursue
pheonix	phoenix
posession	possession
pertend	pretend
potatoe	potato
preceeding	preceding
pronounciation	pronunciation
priviledge	privilege
publically	publicly
recieve	receive
reccomend	recommend
rediculous	ridiculous
reguardless	regardless
remeber	remember
roomate	roommate or room-mate
rythm	rhythm
sacreligious	sacrilegious
seige	siege
sentance	sentence
seperate	separate
sieze	seize
similiar	similar
sincerly	sincerely
speach	speech
speek	speak
Sponser	Sponsor
stationary	stationery (office supplies term. Stationary is a fixed position)
stragedy / stradegy	strategy
suggestable	suggestible
supercede	supersede
supposively	supposedly
suprise	surprise
thier	their
throughly	thoroughly
tommorrow	tomorrow
tounge	tongue
triathalon	triathlon
ukelele	ukulele
vaccuum	vacuum
vegeterian	vegetarian
villian	villain
Wendesday	Wednesday
wierd	weird (exception: Wierd programming language)
writting	writing

Tips

• Feel free to use a dictionary. English words are an explosive mixture of Romance, Germanic and Celtic languages. Latin, Greek, French, Germanic, the languages ​​of the Celtic substratum of Britain - everything is in it! A good dictionary will tell you where the word came from - and this will help you remember the spelling.
• It will not be superfluous to know how words are spelled in other languages ​​related to English. So, for example, the French “ch” reads “sh”, where did “cliche” and “chic” come from.
• Take a word and make a sentence with words starting with each letter of that word, and going in the same sequence. For example, “arithmetic” -> “A rat in the house might eat the ice cream”.
• Check your texts. The eye becomes blurred during work and does not immediately see bloopers and mistakes. Sometimes you check it like this and think: “How could I write such a thing ?!”
• Check compound words using the dictionary. Sometimes the only way to find out the correct spelling of a word is to look in a dictionary. Please note that the dictionary must take into account the peculiarities of British / American English.
• Read on! Read anything and everything! Read as much as possible! The more you read, the better and more literate you will write.

Warnings

• Trust but check. There are mistakes even in books.
• Remember that some double-spelled words (color, color; goiter, goitre; gray, gray; checkered, checkered; theater, theater) are just local variants of the same word.
• Don't rely on spell checkers - they are not a panacea! Plus, they only check spelling and nothing more.
• The spell checker module should check exactly the spelling of the version of English used... A British spell checker will only hurt when you are writing an article for an American publication.
• Sometimes even obvious typos are skipped by the spell checker modules, so don't be relaxed.

Additional articles

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