Today let’s take a look at some common spelling mistakes and how we can avoid them:
When you’ve got words in which the vowel (a, e, i, o, u) is followed by a consonant in the end, you have to double the last letter of the word when you’re comparing things.
Let’s take a look at some examples below:
Big – Bigger – The biggest
Thin – Thinner – The thinnest
Slim – Slimmer – The slimmest
Hot – Hotter – The hottest
If we add -ed or -ing to the words that have only one syllable, but end with a consonant, followed by a vowel and another consonant, we also double the last letter:
Admit – admitted
Forget – forgetting
Sit – sitting
Stop – Stopped
There’s an exception to the rule: if the last letter of the word is w, x or y then we don’t double it.
Note:
If you have a word that ends with the letter L after a vowel then, depending on the English you’re studying (British or American) you could double the letter or not for some words:
| Word | American English | British English |
| Cancel | Canceled | Cancelled |
| Marvel | Marvelous | Marvellous |
| Model | Modeled | Modelled |
| Travel | Traveler | Traveller |
Let’s try to practice these by doing a few exercises:
That’s it for this week and I have a question for you:
Which word was the hardest one for you to spell properly?
Let us know in the comments section and have a good weekend! 🙂