Are you ready for Halloween? Make sure you don't make these 10 mistakes this spooky season: Don’t muddle up the words witch and which! Our spelling game Which Witch is great for practice! Heard a scary sound? It’s a probably a creak, not a creek! As Frankenstein is a name, it needs capital letters. Make sure you don’t confuse forget the apostrophe if you’re writing about Frankenstein’s monster. Don’t get caught out by silent letters – watch out for the sneaky ‘h’ in the words ghost and ghoul . Describing somethin...
New year, new start! If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to improve your spelling and writing, you’re in the right place. Our spelling courses are great for working through the basics of English spelling and our blog is full of other helpful resources. If you’re not sure where to begin, our Spelling Ability Test will help you determine your strengths and weaknesses and create a personalised pathway to guide you through our course. For those of you who are looking for more ideas on how to improve your writing, here are five areas people often make mistakes in. Pick one or more to focus on this year and let us know how you get on! Abbreviations Shortening wor...
The summer holidays are coming to an end and if you’re not back at school yet, you will be soon. To help you prepare, we’ve compiled a list of our favourite posts on grammar and punctuation. Commas are confusing, but luckily we’re here to help. Click here to learn how to use commas to separate clauses, here to learn how to use commas as part of a list, and here to learn how to use commas in direct speech. If you think commas are difficult to use, you’ll probably think semi colons are worse. This punctuation mark is used to denote a break that has more emphasis than a comma but is less final than a full stop. In this article, we look at the two common circumsta...
Should you capitalise an abbreviation? Does it need an apostrophe? What about full stop after it? This week, we’re looking at the different types of abbreviations and how to write each type correctly. Whether or not you should capitalise or use a punctuation mark will depend on the type of abbreviation you are dealing with. Acronym A word made up of the first letters of other words is called an acronym. An acronym is always pronounced as a word and not as separate letters. Most acronyms are written either with the first letter capitalised or with all the letters capitalised. You don’t need to use a full stop after an acronym (unless it is the last word in a sentence...
A contraction is a shortened version of a word created by the omission of a sound. In writing, the omission of a sound (which is usually a vowel) is marked with an apostrophe. It is important to note that while contractions are acceptable in conversation and informal writing, it is better to avoid them in formal writing. You can read more about contractions here. Today we’re going to look at three different contractions all of which are often confused with possessive pronouns. Confusing Words When should I use which word? It’s vs. Its It’s is short for ‘it is’ or (in informal speech) ‘...
A few weeks ago we shared an article on how to use our word list feature. Now that you’ve had a bit of a practise, here are ten word lists to test yourself on. Don’t forget: click on the ‘eye’ icon at the top of each list to take a ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check’ test; click on the ‘ear’ icon to take a ‘Listen and Spell’ test; and click on the soccer ball icon to play games using your words. 50 Words Britons Struggle to Spell (part one, part two, and part three) This list features commonly misspelled words. If you struggle to spell any of them, why not come up with a mnemonic before testing yourself? The Di...
When forming contractions, replace the removed letters with an apostrophe. For example: “I have not got time to meet with you this week.” becomes “I haven’t got time to meet with you this week.” Don’t forget the apostrophes in the irregular formations ‘shan’t’ and ‘won’t’ (short for ‘shall not’ and ‘will not’). Use an apostrophe followed by the letter ‘s’ to indicate singular possession including when the noun ends in ‘s’. For example: “Last week I took Sally’s dog for a walk.” “I’d love to visit St James’s ...
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