Learn the orthography of words!!!

Correct spellings are very important to judge your writing skills. Many students complain to me that their overall English is good but they have difficulty with correct spellings. Even in GRE’s analytical writing section, correct spellings play a crucial role to score well. Modern era is an era of internet chatting and mobile texting, where correct spellings are already taking backseat. Spelling may not be a only parameter to evaluate intelligence and you may find many articulate persons lack this skill .But some times insufficiency of this skill can put you in embarrassing situation. According to a resent survey of ‘fortune 500 human resource employees’ the number of people who were rejected by the company because either their resume or cover letter was erroneous. So I have tried to come up some suggestions following that you could avoid such situation in your life.

* Learn the Etymology of words

You may be surprise to know many words in English are borrowed from other language .Etymological theory recognizes the source from that word is borrowed. You can reinvent new word if you know the source.

. E.g. Boy

Originates from an Anglo- Saxon word boa. Other Words
on boa eg. boat., board , boarding, aboard, balboa, billboard.

* Make a list of your all misspelled words and write them again and again.

* Use mnemonics

Mnemonics is a device, such as a formula, used as an aid in remembering.

Eg. Necessary 1 coat 2 shoes

This means word necessary will take 1 c and 2 s.( you can create your own)

* I before E except C rule

E.g. achieve, friend, chief, ceiling, conceive

* Learn phonetics

There are 40 sounds in English language, called as phoneme .These 40 sounds form 26 alphabets. If you hear correct then you will write correct as well. All good dictionaries come up with phonetic transcription of word. You can learn them with little practice.

* Consonant vowel consonant(c.v.c)rule

This rule apply for 1 and 2 syllable words(no. of vowel count in a word called as syllable .e.g. girl has one vowel so it is one syllable word).When you want to form their past ,continuous, superlative degree ,you will double last consonant.

Eg. Drop Dropped (past form)

Dropping (continuous form)

Big Biggest (superlative degree)

For 2 syllable word see where stress is. If stress is on front vowel the we do not double last consonant.

Eg. Exit Exiting (continuous form)

Enter Entered (past form)

* ‘ie’ changes into ‘ y’ in continuous or progressive form

Eg. Tie+ ing Tying

* If the word is ended by ‘ye’ then don’t remove ‘e’.

Eg. Dye + ing Dying

* Different grammatical structure

Basically there are two grammatical structures .An American structure and the British structure. So some words have two versions of their spelling .Keep remember both structure are correct. Eg. color has two version color an American version and colour the British version .

I hope that above mention piece of writing will be quite Informative for you .If you have some other interesting way to improve spelling then please share with us.

Please feel free to ask your question and post comments below.

Wishing you Success!!

Shipra Srivastava
Team LearnWordList.com

25 Responses to “Learn the orthography of words!!!”

1. raghunath on May 30th, 2010 6:59 am

   please give suggestions to remember words…

   i am trying but not getting the words back…

2. Debasish Acharya, Tripura, India! on June 8th, 2010 5:52 am

   Thank you Shipra Srivastava for your valuable tips on how to ‘Learn the orthography of words!!!’

   I would like to add to your list one more technique.

   *Write the difficult word in reverse order a number of times and try to
   pronounce it!!!

   Regards,
   Debasish Acharya,
   Tripura, India!

3. shipra on June 9th, 2010 4:08 am

   Hii Debasish

   That’s pretty interesting.Hey why don’t you put it in our forum section and let others also benefited by this.We shall love to hear from you in forum section.

   Regards

4. hima on July 28th, 2010 10:30 am

   it is very informative please be giving me such informations so that i can improve my language. thank you great job

5. Hin on July 28th, 2010 1:34 pm

   My method is to pronounce the difficult words again and again , after that you can write them when you close your book.

6. Vimala on July 28th, 2010 2:03 pm

   Hello Shipra,

   I opine learning the homonyms is another effective way to remember the spellings and also their exact definitions. For example,

   Complementary vs. complimentary

   The first one means ‘complete’, as you could associate with the spelling of the word. Right?

7. salman on July 28th, 2010 4:09 pm

   Brilliant work you are doing… I teach for GRE part time and I recommend your website to every single one of my students… hats off and keep up the good work…

8. masoumeh on July 29th, 2010 7:16 pm

   thanks for your useful site. please notes tips about how to writing well.cheer up

9. Galy on July 30th, 2010 9:17 pm

   I would like to learn how to pronounce difficult words.

10. shipra on July 31st, 2010 4:43 am

    Thanks for your comment Galy, the best way to learn pronunciation of words is phonetic transcription.So, i shall suggest kindly try to learn phonetic transcription of each letter in order to learn better pronunciation.

11. shipra on July 31st, 2010 5:00 am

    Thanks for your comment masoumeh,keep visiting us.

12. shipra on July 31st, 2010 5:20 am

    Thanks for your comment salman.We are touched with your response.By teaching students you are also indulge in very noble cause.God bless you keep visiting us.If you have any query related to GRE , do not hesitate to post here.We are here to help you.

13. shipra on July 31st, 2010 5:25 am

    Hi Vimala , thanks for your comment,your suggestion is very good.Keep sharing this kind of information in future as well.

14. shipra on July 31st, 2010 5:29 am

    Thanks your comment hima, we are here to help students like you.kindly keep visiting us in future as well.

15. Nowrooz on August 4th, 2010 5:55 am

    Thank you Shipra Srivastava for your valuable tips on how to ‘Learn the orthography of words.
    Good luck

16. Natalia Sagastegui on August 30th, 2010 1:19 pm

    Shipra,
    Thank you very much for your valuable help with the tips about the contents you present on the web.I like the way you explain them;it is easy to understand. I’d like to learn about phonetics.
    Thanks again.
    Best wishes
    Naty

17. shipra on August 31st, 2010 4:18 am

    Thanks for your comment Natalia,keep visiting us.

18. Hin on September 5th, 2010 3:15 pm

    Good

19. genoveva on September 6th, 2010 5:55 pm

    all those techniques of learning are useful,share them-in other words-play games,..and from time to time do mistakes,then-find where you are did wrong. do you agree with me?Try!!

20. genoveva on September 11th, 2010 9:00 am

    hm, but mistakes i’ve done?

21. genoveva on September 11th, 2010 10:27 am

    as is to be expected i sat and learned attentevely all rulues we had to follow learning the ortography of words. additionally i didn’t undertsand suggestion from Debasish. Wish you great results!

22. Pratik on October 29th, 2010 8:37 pm

    Tell me some most important alphabates for studying GRE vocabs…..plzzz….its urgent….

23. shipra on October 30th, 2010 9:50 am

    Thanks for your comment Pratik, i wish to suggest you take all the alphabates with equal importance as you never know what you can find in your final test.

24. emmanuel on December 2nd, 2010 10:56 am

    good stuff i will love more of it

25. shipra on December 3rd, 2010 4:23 am

    Thanks for your comment emmanuel, kindly keep visiting us..

Post Your Comments and Questions