Commonly misspelled words

Hello! Welcome to 6 Minute Vocabulary. I’m Finn.

And I’m Catherine. In this programme, we’re talking about misspelt words.

Let’s start by listening to Marcus. He’s talking about his last holiday.

And here’s a question for while you’re listening: What was the weather like on Marcus’s holiday?

Last year we decided to have a foreign holiday. We travelled by coach to Rome and the scenery in northern Italy was beautiful. Our hotel accommodation was great, and we had some wonderful meals in restaurants . The weather was a bit changeable until the third day but it didn ‘t matter. We got to practise our Italian and it ‘s a lot better now. The whole thing was a great experience .

We asked you: What was the weather like on Marcus’s holiday?

And the answer is that the weather was a bit changeable and that brings us to our first common spelling mistake. Changeable is spelt c-h-a-n-g-E-a-b-l-e .

Yes, there are quite a lot of words with the letters g-e in them, and the e shows that the g is pronounced softly as /dʒ/, chan ge able.

Other examples of words with g-e in the middle are manageable, management, knowledgeable and acknowledgement. And they all have the e after the g . But what other words with tricky spellings did we hear? Listen.

Last year we decided to have a foreign holiday. We travelled by coach to Rome and the scenery in northern Italy was beautiful. Our hotel accommodation was great, and we had some wonderful meals in restaurants .

Now the spelling of foreign is interesting. There’s a spelling rule that says you must put i before e except after c . And that ‘s a really good rule for lots of words.

Like believe , spelt b-e-l-I-E-v-e and receive spelt r-e-c-E-I-v-e .

Exactly. Or field spelt f-i-e-l-d but ceiling , with a c, c-e-i-l-i-n-g.

Yes, so foreign breaks the rule, doesn ‘t it? It’s spelt f-o-r-e-i-g-n . And there ‘s no letter c there.

No, that’s an exception.And there are a few others like leisure and weird. They both have e-i - but not after a c. It’s really worth learning these.

What other tricky spellings were there in that clip? We heard travelled. How many l s are there in travelled?

There are two. In British English, with verbs that end in a vowel before l or r , we double the final consonants when we make them into past or continuous forms.

Finally there were three nouns that can cause spelling problems. What were they, Catherine?

They were be scenery, accommodation and restaurants .

Scenery starts with an s sound, but it is spelt with s-c . It ‘s easy to forget the c because you don’t hear it. The words science and scissors are the same.

Now accommodation has a double c and a double m and restaurant has the letters au in the middle. No rule for these I ‘m afraid! They just have to be learnt. Next clip!

We got to practise our Italian and it ‘s a lot better now. The whole thing was a great experience.

So how do you spell the verb practise ?

So the verb practise is p-r-a-c-t-i-S-e . It ends in s-e not c-e. That’s a very common mistake because the noun practice is spelt with i-c-e at the end.

And finally we heard experience. Now is that e-n-c-e or a-n-c-e at the end?

Experience ends in e-n-c-e . Whereas performance ends in a-n-c-e . And yet again there’s no rule for these spellings. You just have to check them and learn them.

And it’s quiz time! Number one. My sister’s new baby’s very loveable. But how do you spell loveable ?

It’s l-o-v-e-a-b-l-e. Not forgetting the e in the middle.

You’re right! Now question two: The word ancient - meaning very old - does not follow the usual rule. Can you spell it?

Ancient is a-n-c-i-e-n-t .

Exactly, and question three: How many l s are there in quarrelling , meaning arguing?

The answer’s two l s .

Double l , that’s correct, well done. And well done if you got those right at home. There’s more about this at bbclearningenglish.com. Join us again soon for more 6 Minute Vocabulary.

Bye!