Hyde: how not to make stupid mistakes in written English
Many believe that a foreign language should be taught only in order to speak. But in fact, even if you learn English for traveling, sooner or later you will have to face the letter. For example, chat with the hotel, which you booked. If you need a language for business, then it’s generally unacceptable to write a resume and write business letters with errors. Of course, spelling in English is still a trouble, but some common mistakes can still be avoided.
Word formation in English is a very exciting topic. But in terms of suffixing, there is no difference with Russian. We take the root, append the suffix to it, we get another part of speech. There are a number of adjectives that are formed using the suffix –ful . And yes, it really is the word “full” , “full”. Beauti ful - full of beauty, hope ful - full of hope, harm ful - full of harm. That's only if the word “full” is written with two letters l , then the suffix is written with one.
Favorite mistake of many students, and even after the explanation sometimes remains in the letter for quite a long time. It’s an abbreviation for it is , that is, a full grammatical basis (subject and predicate). In English, a fixed word order, so the subject and the predicate always go first in the declarative sentence, unless there is an inversion for stylistic purposes.
In turn, its is a pronoun. It translates as “his” or “her,” but is used for inanimate objects, animals, and occasionally babies. Yes, baby or infant is it . But the parents of even unborn baby are called he / she . Being a pronoun, its will stand in front of a word that defines: This is a house, its walls are made of brick . Whose walls? His, at home. Russian students very often use his / her pronouns in such cases, focusing on their native language. But in English, as you can see, everything is somewhat different.
Homonyms, as we will see further, are heard extremely hard to hear. And although you're and yours even sound a little differently, even the speakers manage to err in these words. But we all know that there or a turn there is / there are at the beginning of a sentence will give an indication of the place, their is the pronoun “them” and will stand before the noun, as well as your , “your”, “your”, and you 're is an abbreviation for you are , a full grammatical basis and the beginning of a sentence.
There are a lot of them, but students often forget to add e , believing that a single letter i is enough for a long sound [i:]. For example, in the words bel ie ve, n ie ce, f ie ld, p ie ce, ch ie f, ach ie ve and many others. There are exceptions: w ei rd (which translates as “strange”), for ei gner (which is also inherited from the pronunciation part) and rec ei ve .
These are borrowings from Latin, so you will hardly find such words on low levels, but then they will begin to occur everywhere and confuse you with the fact that they are written with the combination of sc , and sc can be pronounced as [s] and as [ʃ ], and even as [sk]. Examples include the words sc ience, con sc ience, adole sc ent, micro sc ope and a good hundred other words. Here is a list , however, in life you, of course, all these words are not useful because of the narrow focus. The good news is that as a rule, text editors and auto-corrections are able to immediately rearrange the letters s and c in some places, if you are sealed in the sequence.
To double the final consonant there are three rules.
1. If we need to add a suffix to the root, and the root ends with the combination “consonant-vowel-consonant”, then the final consonant will double. Usually this rule is clearly pronounced in the subject of comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives. For example, big - bi gg er - the bi gg est . The word big is short and is built on the principle of "consonant-vowel-consonant". The word consists of one closed syllable. If we forget to double the consonant, we get an open syllable and an incorrect pronunciation of the word.
2. If a word is long and consists of 2 or more syllables, ends in a vowel and a consonant, and the last syllable is under the stress, then doubling is also done. For example, forge tt ing, regre tt ed, transmi tt ing .
3. The final letters w, x, y do not double. That is, vowed , for example, will not become vowwed .
Even for carriers is a mystery why four, fourteen , but forty . Have to memorize. By the way, among the numerals-exceptions are also fifth, fifteen, third, thirteen, thirty and ninth .
If you write this word as it is pronounced, it turns out okay . Quite often, this word is written in its entirety, and not in two letters. The main thing is not to write okey . In informal correspondence this is permissible in the combination okey-dokey .
Beware: which is “which”, “which of”, but witch is “witch”. And the word whitch does not exist at all.
Here the Russian students are confused by the pronunciation. It seems that m u st is pronounced as [mʌst], and I want to write mast, but this is a mistake (and in general another word). The same fate awaits b u t, cr u st, cl u tter and other words in which the letter u is usually written. In the British standard, the letter a never gives a short sound [ʌ], but Americans sometimes open up a short sound too much [ɒ], and it turns into [ʌ]. So help only your vigilance.
Until recently, the word alright did not exist in any version of the English language. But the all right combination suffered the same fate as the all together and all ready combinations. Therefore, the word alright is already considered viable. However, many carriers still consider it a mistake, so it is better to avoid it in official correspondence.
Of course, this is not a complete list. There are many borrowings in English, and as a rule, they represent the greatest difficulty in writing. For example, words like f atigue, restaurant, technology, oesophagus (UK), photography . When studying spelling, we advise you to decide on a language option. Americans have greatly simplified spelling rules for a large number of words, while the British still retain the Latin or French spelling.
Also do not forget that very complex borrowed words can be highly specialized. The above example with the word oesophagus is intended to illustrate this to you. Do you often use the word "esophagus" in your life? About that and speech. And if you are a doctor who teaches English for work, then you don’t need to learn a lot of terms from your field, because the lion’s share of these terms are Latinisms that you already know. If you are curious about what other words confuse carriers and foreigners, then look at the top 100 words that most often write with errors (according to the Oxford dictionary).
Readers of the blog give a coupon for 500 rubles for the purchase of a subscription, which includes 8 types of training and weekly mailings about English grammar and vocabulary - "Vitaminki" and "Buns".
And for unlimited and perpetual access to all features of the site there is an “All Inclusive” tariff (the discount does not apply).
Suffix –ful
Word formation in English is a very exciting topic. But in terms of suffixing, there is no difference with Russian. We take the root, append the suffix to it, we get another part of speech. There are a number of adjectives that are formed using the suffix –ful . And yes, it really is the word “full” , “full”. Beauti ful - full of beauty, hope ful - full of hope, harm ful - full of harm. That's only if the word “full” is written with two letters l , then the suffix is written with one.
It's and its
Favorite mistake of many students, and even after the explanation sometimes remains in the letter for quite a long time. It’s an abbreviation for it is , that is, a full grammatical basis (subject and predicate). In English, a fixed word order, so the subject and the predicate always go first in the declarative sentence, unless there is an inversion for stylistic purposes.
In turn, its is a pronoun. It translates as “his” or “her,” but is used for inanimate objects, animals, and occasionally babies. Yes, baby or infant is it . But the parents of even unborn baby are called he / she . Being a pronoun, its will stand in front of a word that defines: This is a house, its walls are made of brick . Whose walls? His, at home. Russian students very often use his / her pronouns in such cases, focusing on their native language. But in English, as you can see, everything is somewhat different.
There / their, you / your
Homonyms, as we will see further, are heard extremely hard to hear. And although you're and yours even sound a little differently, even the speakers manage to err in these words. But we all know that there or a turn there is / there are at the beginning of a sentence will give an indication of the place, their is the pronoun “them” and will stand before the noun, as well as your , “your”, “your”, and you 're is an abbreviation for you are , a full grammatical basis and the beginning of a sentence.
Words with a combination of ie
There are a lot of them, but students often forget to add e , believing that a single letter i is enough for a long sound [i:]. For example, in the words bel ie ve, n ie ce, f ie ld, p ie ce, ch ie f, ach ie ve and many others. There are exceptions: w ei rd (which translates as “strange”), for ei gner (which is also inherited from the pronunciation part) and rec ei ve .
Words with sc
These are borrowings from Latin, so you will hardly find such words on low levels, but then they will begin to occur everywhere and confuse you with the fact that they are written with the combination of sc , and sc can be pronounced as [s] and as [ʃ ], and even as [sk]. Examples include the words sc ience, con sc ience, adole sc ent, micro sc ope and a good hundred other words. Here is a list , however, in life you, of course, all these words are not useful because of the narrow focus. The good news is that as a rule, text editors and auto-corrections are able to immediately rearrange the letters s and c in some places, if you are sealed in the sequence.
Double consonants (eg, beginning, smaller)
To double the final consonant there are three rules.
1. If we need to add a suffix to the root, and the root ends with the combination “consonant-vowel-consonant”, then the final consonant will double. Usually this rule is clearly pronounced in the subject of comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives. For example, big - bi gg er - the bi gg est . The word big is short and is built on the principle of "consonant-vowel-consonant". The word consists of one closed syllable. If we forget to double the consonant, we get an open syllable and an incorrect pronunciation of the word.
2. If a word is long and consists of 2 or more syllables, ends in a vowel and a consonant, and the last syllable is under the stress, then doubling is also done. For example, forge tt ing, regre tt ed, transmi tt ing .
3. The final letters w, x, y do not double. That is, vowed , for example, will not become vowwed .
Forty!
Even for carriers is a mystery why four, fourteen , but forty . Have to memorize. By the way, among the numerals-exceptions are also fifth, fifteen, third, thirteen, thirty and ninth .
Ok
If you write this word as it is pronounced, it turns out okay . Quite often, this word is written in its entirety, and not in two letters. The main thing is not to write okey . In informal correspondence this is permissible in the combination okey-dokey .
Which / witch
Beware: which is “which”, “which of”, but witch is “witch”. And the word whitch does not exist at all.
The letter a instead of the letter u
Here the Russian students are confused by the pronunciation. It seems that m u st is pronounced as [mʌst], and I want to write mast, but this is a mistake (and in general another word). The same fate awaits b u t, cr u st, cl u tter and other words in which the letter u is usually written. In the British standard, the letter a never gives a short sound [ʌ], but Americans sometimes open up a short sound too much [ɒ], and it turns into [ʌ]. So help only your vigilance.
All right vs alright
Until recently, the word alright did not exist in any version of the English language. But the all right combination suffered the same fate as the all together and all ready combinations. Therefore, the word alright is already considered viable. However, many carriers still consider it a mistake, so it is better to avoid it in official correspondence.
Of course, this is not a complete list. There are many borrowings in English, and as a rule, they represent the greatest difficulty in writing. For example, words like f atigue, restaurant, technology, oesophagus (UK), photography . When studying spelling, we advise you to decide on a language option. Americans have greatly simplified spelling rules for a large number of words, while the British still retain the Latin or French spelling.
Also do not forget that very complex borrowed words can be highly specialized. The above example with the word oesophagus is intended to illustrate this to you. Do you often use the word "esophagus" in your life? About that and speech. And if you are a doctor who teaches English for work, then you don’t need to learn a lot of terms from your field, because the lion’s share of these terms are Latinisms that you already know. If you are curious about what other words confuse carriers and foreigners, then look at the top 100 words that most often write with errors (according to the Oxford dictionary).
For those who want to pump English
Readers of the blog give a coupon for 500 rubles for the purchase of a subscription, which includes 8 types of training and weekly mailings about English grammar and vocabulary - "Vitaminki" and "Buns".
And for unlimited and perpetual access to all features of the site there is an “All Inclusive” tariff (the discount does not apply).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/409875/