How to Spell English Words | Spelling Tips

How to Spell English Words

English language is a language of exceptions. Therefore, there are various exceptions and it becomes difficult for many people to pronounce or write English words correctly. The same letter has different sound at different place or in different words. For example:

Letter ‘c’ has ‘s’ sound in certain but ‘k’ sound in cup.

Letter ‘g’ has ‘g’ sound in gun but ‘j’ sound in general.

These were some examples about the different sound of the same letter. There are several other confusions about English spellings.

For example:

Achieve has ‘ie’ for sound ‘ee’(ई ) whereas receive has ‘ei’ in it for the sound ‘ee’(ई ).

When you change baby into plural form it becomes babies not babys but when you change key into plural form we write keys not keies.

Having so many variations in English spellings, many people get confused to write correct English spellings.

Keeping all kind of confusions in my mind, I have brought some solutions for you. I will share some spelling tips with you. If you follow the following spelling tips, you will surely learn to write correct spellings very easily. Just focus and read them carefully.

Spelling Tips:

1. ‘i’ before ‘e’ except ‘c’*

‘ei’ is followed by ‘c’ otherwise we use ‘ie’

Examples for‘ie’
thief, believe, achieve , die, friend

We have ‘ie’ together as they do not have ‘c’ before.

* If the sound is /ee/(ई), we use ‘ei’ after ‘c’
e.g. receive ,deceive, ceiling, receipt

Exceptions: ancient, efficient, Science. Here we have ‘ie’ after ‘c’ as sound for ‘ie’ is not ‘ee’(ई).

2. Letter ‘c’ always softens to /s/ sound when followed by ‘e’ ‘i’ or ‘y’ otherwise ‘c’ is pronounced as /k/
e.g. Cake, cover, call, case, curtain etc have /k/ sound for ‘c’ Ceiling, certain, civil, city etc have /s/ sound for ‘c’

3. Letter ‘g’ may soften to /j/ only when followed by ‘e’ ‘i’ or ‘y’
          (ge, gi or gy= /j/)
e.g. general, gesture, gel, gym, age, germ, giant, gem   *Sound for ‘g’ is /j/
In other cases sound for ‘g’ remains /g/
          (ga, gu or go = /g/)
e.g. Grapes, goal, gap, govern, good, guess etc
*sound for ‘g’ is /g/

4. If you add an ‘e’ at the end of the word, the vowel before says its name.
Pin+ e = Pine       (Hear i sound)
Win + e = Wine   (Hear i sound)
At + e = Ate          (Hear a sound)
Hop + e = Hope   (Hear o sound)

5. If the word has consonant before ‘y’, we change y into ‘ies’

e.g. baby- babies

Story- stories

If the word ends in a vowel + y, just add ‘s’

e.g. Key – keys

Trolley- trolleys

*we can’t have three vowels in a row

6. Every word in English has at least one vowel.

e.g. shut, cut, at, bat etc.

7. Letter ‘Q’ is always followed by ‘u’.

e.g. queen, quiz etc.

8. English words never end with ‘v’ or ‘u’

e.g. have, clue, save etc

We add silent ‘e’ at the end of the word.

Watch this video to have better understanding for spelling mistakes?

These were some spelling tips which can be very useful for anyone who finds it difficult to write correct spellings in English.

Keep reading my blog posts to get more tips and learn new things about English pronunciation, speaking or writing.

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