ALPHABET & SPEECH IDIOMS

SPOT THE MISTAKES

There are twenty mistakes in this compostion. Spot them and use the mistake detecting code you have in the HELP page of this blog.

PRONUNCIATION & SPELLING TABLE. BASIC PRONUNCIATION RULES OF '-S' & '-ED' ENDINGS VIDEO LESSON.

 

 

Video lesson:

Link to previous post on:

- Pronunciation of final '-s'

- Pronunciation of final '-ed'

ASKING & GIVING ADVICE. [CONFUSING 'ADVICE' vs 'ADVISE']

PLURAL SPELLING RULES

This chart shows the basic spelling rules for plural formation of nouns in English.

For complete information on how to make the plural of nouns, click HERE to go to a previous post in this blog.

SPELLING ARTICLE 'A(N)': RULE & EXCEPTION

This chart shows the rule to spell the article 'A' or 'AN' and the exception.

HOW BRITISH & AMERICAN SPELLING PARTED WAYS

Here's another animated video to show us the origin of how British & American spellings parted ways.

Video:

SOUNDS & SPELLINGS

'-ED' & '-ING' SPELLINGS

This charts shows the spelling rules for regular past verbs ending in '-ED' and the formation of gerunds ending in '-ING'.

Previous post in this blog refer to them separately:

- for '-ED' spellings & pronounciation

- for '-ING' spellings

'-ED': REGULAR PAST, PRONUNCIATION & SPELLING

Two simple charts to remind you about the basics on pronunciation and spelling of regular simple pasts ending in '-ED'.

For more complete info on the pronunciation of '-ED', click to previous post HERE.

Video lesson:

SPELLING -ING FORMS

Here are the spelling rules for -ING forms.

WORDS WHERE 'CH' SPELLING IS PRONOUNCED /k/ or 'sh'

A pronounciation lesson today. Words with spelling 'CH', which are pronounced either /k/ as the words above or 'sh' as the ones below.

IF YOU CAN SAY EVERY WORD IN THIS POEM, YOU SPEAK BETTER ENGLISH THAN 90% OF THE NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS

If you can pronounce this complete poem well, it's said that you speak better than 90% of the British population. The poem is called "THE CHAOS", written by Gerald Nolst Trenité in 1922 and shows the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation. Have a try, below there's a video where you can listen to it being read if you need help.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Video "THE CHAOS":

DIFFERENT SPELLINGS BETWEEN BrE & AmE

Another post about differences between British and American English. This time devoted entirely to spelling differences. As we've already explained in a previous general post on differences between BrE & AmE, in spelling we could say in general that AmE has a more logical & simpler spelling, from a Spanish point of view. Below there's enclosed a video explaining.

Video:

SILENT LETTERS

Here are charts with common words which have silent letters. Remember them.

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYMDROBWILLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH

While we wait to start off the new school year, let's begin with a funny curiosity. The title of this post is nothing strange... It's not exactly English, but Welsh. It's the village with the longest name in Britain and in the whole world with 51 letters (considering ch and ll as digraphs in Welsh, so single letters). You can see in the photos above, the name and where the village is on the map.

which means: Parish [church] of [St.] Mary (Llanfair) [in] Hollow (pwll) of the White Hazel [township] (gwyn gyll) near (go ger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrn drobwll) [and] the parish [church] of [St.] Tysilio (Llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo[f] goch).

but if you want to hear it being pronounced, here's a video of a weatherman on British TV saying the name correctly live on the weather forecast.

Video:

By the way you can also check on the weather vocabulary once again.

USING HYPHENS

Here's a chart that explains clearly when to use a hypen (-).

PRESENT CONTINUOUS MIND-MAP

Presenting the mind-map chart for the PRESENT CONTINUOUS to show how to form it.
Also in boxes the different spelling rules for the -ING form.
Remember the PRESENT CONTINUOUS is used to express:

1) ACTIONS THAT ARE HAPPENING AT THE MOMENT YOU SPEAK, NOW.

I'm reading a post on the blog, now.

2) EXCEPTIONS TO ROUTINES AND HABITS.

I usually go to bed early, but today I'm staying up until late.

3) NEAR FUTURE PLANS.

Next Saturday, I'm meeting my friends at the city centre.

SPELLING THE ENGLISH ALPHABET

Spelling the English alphabet has its difficulties, specially with some of the letters. In the chart above you can see the letters of the alphabet ordered by their pronunciation. Below another chart to practice listening and pronunciation.

WHY DO BRITS & AMERICANS SPELL WORDS DIFFERENTLY?

Here's a video from Anglophenia which explains why Brits and Americans spell words differently. Take a look:

Video: