Many intelligent people with a lot of interesting things to say look bad for spelling mistakes. A couple of mistakes, even small ones, can make the reader think that whoever wrote the text is incompetent. Here are some tips for avoiding the most common spelling mistakes in English.
Steps
Method 1 of 1: Avoid Common Spelling Mistakes
Step 1. "There", "their" and "they're" sound the same yet have completely different meanings
Let's start with these three words.
- "There" is an adverb of place. Advice: it is easy to remember because it contains the word "here", also an adverb of place. The words "here" and "there" are used to indicate certain places. "There" indicates that someone or something is in a certain place.
- "Their" means "something that belongs to them". Advice: contains the word "heir", which means "heir"; an heir is someone who has inherited something, therefore a person who owns something. "T" plus "heir" becomes "their", which is a possessive pronoun.
- "They're" means "they are". It is nothing more than the union of "they" (them) and "are" (are). The apostrophe (') shows that a letter (in the case of "they're", the letter "a") has been removed and replaced by the apostrophe.
Step 2. "Two", "to" and "too" are three other words that are pronounced similarly
- Let's start with "to". Usually, it is used to indicate the direction to a certain place: "go" and "to", therefore, have the letter "o" in common and differ by only one letter. The word "to" is used as a preposition and in infinitive sentences.
- "Too" indicates an excess of something, as in the phrase "it's too hard to learn all the rules of English spelling", which means "it is too difficult to learn all the rules of English spelling". Tips: The meaning of "too" is made evident by the excessive amount of "o" that this word contains. "To" with an extra "o" means "too much".
- "Two" is number 2. There is no real way to remember to include a "w" in this word; the only thing that can help is asking yourself: "Why am I writing this word (" w ord "in English) in full instead of using the number?". If you are writing a short essay or legal document write "two", unless you have been explicitly asked to use numerals. In any case, you can write down the numbers in full on other occasions as well.
Step 3. Now comes the tricky:
when does the word "its" mean the apostrophe? According to the standard rules of the English language, "its" is a possessive pronoun. "It's" is the contracted form of "it is" ("is"). Do not use "it's" like this: "It's dog has gone". This sentence, in fact, means: "It's dog ran away".
If you have to write "it is" and you want to use the contracted form, put the apostrophe. When something belongs to "it", the apostrophe is not needed. Using "its" and "it's" properly will make your text more correct and, consequently, will not make the reader lose patience
Step 4. "Write" / "right" and "tried" / "tired" are two other pairs of words that sound similar but are spelled differently
These words are called "homophones".
- "Write" means "to write". "Right" means "right", "correct" but also "right".
- "Tried" means "(having) tried", while "tired" means "tired".
- Also, "loose" means "wide", "loose", while "lose" means "to lose" (in the sense of "losing a game" or "losing the keys").
- "One" is number 1, while "won" means "won". They are pronounced similarly but have different meanings.
Step 5. Dictionaries offer valuable help:
Get one! Good (correct) writing!
