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Words ending -ly and -ect Words ending -ick and -ic More words ending -ic Words ending -er, -or and -ar Quiz on words ending -er, -or and -ar Words ending -ation Words ending -ate >>>>> -ation Words ending -able, -ible Words ending -ical, -icle, -acle Words ending -gry Spelling words ending -ly and -ect Listen carefully to the way people speak. Notice how they often run one word into another or drop the end off a word altogether. Ask someone to read this sentence aloud a few times: "Sally popped down to the shops." Listen particularly to "popped down". Did it sound like "popt" or did they just miss out the -ed completely? Very often the sound of a word isn't much help in telling you how to spell it. 1. Some endings can be heard clearly enough to help us spell them. Here are two of them. Copy out the following words: slowly inspect happily project normally neglect separately recollect positively architect If you make lists of words that have similar patterns you will soon become a better speller. 2. Now memorize the focus words and test yourself on them. Spelling words ending ic and ick As we've pointed out before, the end of a word is often hard to hear because we tend to run one word into another when speaking. A sound you can usually hear quite clearly is -ick or -ic. Same sound but two spellings. However there is a simple way to spot the difference. 1. Look at the following words and copy them in the spaces: Ending -ick Ending -ic kick traffic click panic trick Titanic chick ethnic sick clinic Did you spot the difference? The words with only one syllable end in -ick. The words having more than one syllable end in -ic. There are only a few exceptions to this pattern and these usually happen where two words are joined together as in homesick and candlestick. 2. On a spare piece of paper write down all the words you can think of that end with -ick. Work your way through the alphabet, not forgetting words that start with two consonants such as brick. How many can you find? We thought of twenty without much trouble. Can you beat that? 3. Now memorize the focus words and test yourself on them. Words ending ic 1. Notice that each of the following words has more than one syllable and ends in -ic. Copy each word in the space alongside. mimic scientific tonic magic horrific tonic Arctic Antarctic traffic comic logic tragic 2. Look at this e-mail. Some of the words have been left out. They are all from the list of focus words. Write them down on a separate piece of paper. Hi Mac, I was late for school today because of the heavy 1 . We were doing a new 2 in Geography about the world's oceans. Our teacher told us about the two largest oceans, the 3 and the 4 . Then she went on to describe the 5 and the 6 at the very north and south of the globe. In 7 we were doing long multiplication sums. We're hoping to go on a 8 in the woods on Saturday if the 9 gets our car fixed in time. It would be 10 if you could come too. Let me know as soon as possible. Love, Elizabeth Words ending -er, -or, and -ar There are lots of words in English which end with the -er sound. But when you listen to these words you can't be sure whether the sound is made by -er, -or or -ar. Sorry, there's no easy rule but there are a few helpful word patterns: 1. I should point out that there are more than ten times as many words ending with -er than -or and -ar together. So, if you guess -er then there's a good chance that you'll be right! 2. Verbs ending in a silent e usually change to nouns by ending -er: dive/diver wade/wader write/writer avenge/avenger 3. -er is also the most common way of ending a word for someone carrying out an action: Action Person carrying out the action reporting reporter playing player fighting fighter listening listener printing printer cleaning cleaner 4. -or is used when the base word ends in -ate, -ct, -it : calculate/calculator create/creator investigate/investigator contract/contractor reflect/reflector conduct/conductor visit/visitor exhibit/exhibitor edit/editor 5. There is no especially useful pattern to recognise words that end in -ar except to say that many of them finish with -lar: regular popular similar pillar But other than that it's just a matter of memorizing the -ar words as you come across them. Mispronouncing the ending so that it rhymes with the -ar- in market is a handy memory trick. Here's a quiz on the endings -er, -or and -ar See if you can choose the correct words in the following. Click on the button alongside a word to see if you're right. 1. operater operator operatar 2. spectaculor spectaculer spectacular 3 reportar reporter reportor 4. trespassor trespasser trespassar 5. collecter collectar collector 6. quizmastar quizmastor quizmaster 7 instructor instructar instructer 8. aligater aligatar aligator 9. similar similer similer 10. inspecter inspector inspectar 11. glassmakar glassmaker glassmakor 12. accelerator accelerater acceleratar 13. rectangular rectanguler rectangulor 14. manufacturor manufacturar manufacturer 15. musculer musculor muscular Words ending with ation 1. There are many words in English which end with -ation. This is a very useful pattern to learn. Here are just a few common examples. Read them out aloud. station location relation registration coronation nation preparation duration hesitation situation reputation starvation cultivation vibration population desperation sensation decoration celebration quotation equation habitation agitation donation 2. Add -ation to the following to make whole words. The first one is done for you. lubric- lubrication imagin- veget- civiliz- consider- punctu- Click here for the answers or have a try at a wordsearch puzzle or an interactive hangman game on words ending with ation . Changing verbs ending with -ate to nouns ending with -ation 1. Change the following verbs to nouns. Take away the -ate and add -ation. The first one is done for you. Root Verb Noun Root Verb Noun educate education create operate demonstrate concentrate exaggerate retaliate abbreviate 2. Write down the root verbs of these nouns. Check in the dictionary if you need help. Noun Root Verb Noun Root Verb relegation location dedication ventilation radiation indication Click here for the answers but don't forget to come back! 3. Now memorize the focus words and test yourself on them. Why not brush up your memorizing skills? 4. Click here for a list of verbs following this pattern Words ending -able and -ible Two common endings are -able and -ible. But how can you tell which one to use? The difficulty is that we pronounce the leading vowels very similarly: we make a sort of -ugh- sound and you can't hear whether it is -a- or-i- . There are no simple rules to follow. But here are three tips that you may find useful: o If the base word is not altered in any way then add -able. This works most of the time: understand —> understandable, predict —> predictable, comfort —> comfortable, and so on. o There are many more words ending -able than -ible. I counted 900 -able words and 200 -ible words. So, if you make a guess and choose -able you're probably right 4 out of 5 times! o The best advice I can give you is to learn the most common -ible words and use -able for the rest. Very many of the -ible words are so rare that you'll never use them. Have you ever written fungible for instance? Here are the most common -ible words: edible: fit for eating credible: can be believed audible: can be heard legible: easy to read negligible: of no importance terrible: causing terror horrible: awful feasible: can be done visible: can be seen sensible: reasonable responsible: trustworthy possible: liable to happen digestible: can be digested flexible: easily bent permissible: allowable compatible: suitable Many of them have negative forms by adding in-, il-, ir-, or im- . For example: inedible, illegible, irresponsible, impossible. Words ending ical, icle and acle 1. Look at the following words. You will see that their endings all sound rather similar. Read them out aloud. topical spectacle clinical cubicle tentacle icicle obstacle article chronicle comical vehicle logical mechanical oracle particle miracle 2. Sort the words into three groups: -ical (adjectives) -acle (nouns) -icle (nouns) Notice how the adjectives all end with -ical, and the nouns end with -acle or -icle. Handy Tip: Nearly all the words that end with this sound will be adjectives and will therefore end with -ical. 3. Now memorize the focus words and test yourself on them. Are you remembering to use LOOK - THINK - COVER - WRITE - CHECK? I often receive emails asking me to solve a puzzle. The person has been asked a question about the third word which ends in -gry. They have been led to believe that there are three common words in the English language which end in -gry and have been asked to think of the third one. Three things you need to know about this puzzle are: 1. There are only two common words ending in -gry. They are angry and hungry. There are several other words which end like this such as aggry, meagry, puggry and some others. But none of these could be described as common words. 2. This is a riddle rather than a genuine question - so you need to be on guard for some trickery in the wording of the question. 3. Sometimes this riddle is misquoted. If you don't have the correct wording it becomes impossible to solve. This how it should be worded: * Think of words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is. Now that you know that it is a riddle and you have the correct wording, why not spend some time trying to solve it? http://www.spelling.hemscott.net/#endings |