Latest blog posts

10 Writing Mistakes to Avoid this Christmas

One week until Christmas Eve! Watch out for these 10 common writing mistakes this festive season: Bough Make sure you’re decking your halls with boughs of holly and not bows. Deer If you’re writing about the animals that pull Santa’s sleigh, use deer not dear. Frankincense What a tricky word to spell! Pay attention to the ‘i’, the ‘c’, and the ‘s’. Mistletoe Don’t get caught out by silent letters – watch out for the sneaky ‘t’ in the word mistletoe. Myrrh Do you find frankincense or myrrh harder to spell? Watch out for the ...

Word for Wednesday: Apostrophe

Over the course of March we’ve decided to try something new for our Word for Wednesday feature and choose each week’s word to fit around a specific theme. Our chosen theme is punctuation, starting with the word apostrophe. As today is National Grammar Day in the United States of America, it is important to point out that grammar and punctuation are not the same thing. Grammar refers to the whole system and structure of a language and you can find a Word for Wednesday post about the word’s origin here. Punctuation on the other hand refers to the written marks used to separate sentences in order to clarify meaning. Punctuation marks have a variety of...

Spellzone February Round-Up

Happy Leap Day! Here’s our February Round-Up: - This month’s pair of Commonly Confused Words were complement and compliment. Not sure the difference? Click here for tips and tricks to help you tell them apart. - With Valentine’s Day falling in the middle of the month, what word could we choose for our 10 Words feature but love? Whether you’re looking to describe romantic love, familial love, or platonic love; we’ve got the word for you. - This month we also returned to our Idioms series with a list of idioms about thought and memory. Can you think of any others? - Does Spring still feel too far away? Get yourself ready with our n...

Spellzone January Round-Up

How has your first month of 2020 been? Here's what we got up to this month: We began the year by sharing 20 steps you can take to help you improve your spelling this year. If you haven’t thought about your New Year’s resolutions since January 1st (or if you haven’t thought about them at all), it’s not too late. You’ve got eleven months left to achieve. Take your first step today – find part one of our list here and part two here. This month we returned to our Commonly Confused Words series and looked at the words peace and piece. Click here for some brilliant mnemonics to help you remember how to spell each of these words. ...

Spellzone November Round-Up

Commonly Confused Words: Waist vs. Waste Since we didn’t fit one in in October, we started November by adding to our Commonly Confusing Words series. This month’s words were waist and waste. One of these words refers to rubbish while the other one is a a part of the body – do you know which? Click here for tips and tricks to help you tell them apart. 25 Idioms about Earth In November, we finally finished our collection of blog posts on idioms about the four elements. In this article we look idioms about both the planet earth and the earth on the ground. Click here to learn the meanings of expressions like ‘down to earth’, ‘salt of t...

Spellzone October Round-Up

20 Idioms About Air Autumnal October, with its crisp chilly air, seemed like the perfect season to continue with our series of idioms about the four elements. From castles in the air, to airing your dirty laundry, to walking on air, this article translates a variety of idioms about air into plain English. If you’re interested in other idioms about the four elements, click here for idioms about fire and here for idioms about water. And – of course – keep your eyes for the final instalment: idioms about earth. 10 Word for…ANGRY In September we continued with our 10 Words blog feature by sharing alternatives to the word 'angry'. In these...

Spellzone September Round-up

Back to School Whether you’re a teacher, student, or parent, we hope you had a restful summer and are now enjoying the new school term. If you’re looking to change up your lesson plans or get to grips with spelling this year, Spellzone is the course for you. Spellzone is an online English spelling resource used by students aged seven to adult. It unlocks the mystery of English spelling and is adaptable for all abilities including students learning English as a foreign language and those with dyslexia. Want to find out more about how to integrate the course into your studies? This month we shared some of our favourite back-to-school blog posts from the ar...

Spellzone August Round-up

A New Blog Feature Welcome to our new 10 Words blog feature designed to help you expand your vocabulary. In each article we’ll choose a word and give you 10 other words you might be able to use in its place. Maybe you’re learning English, or maybe you’re just bored of using the same words over and over again – either way this series is sure to help. You may also be interested in our three tips for expanding your vocabulary. To kick off the series, we’ve chose the word happy. Click here for more. Commonly Confused Words This month, for our Commonly Confused Words post, we looked at the words enquire and inquire. Though ...

Spellzone July Round-up

British English or American English? The internet means choosing whether to use American spelling or English spelling no longer just depends on what country you live in. More and more people work with colleagues from all over the world and different institutes, organisations, and publications have different style guides. This means it is likely that you will have to change between American and British spelling every now and then. In this article, to celebrate American Independence Day, we shared three of our favourite articles on American English from the archive. Commonly Confused Words July took us back to our Commonly Confused Words series. For vs. Fore vs. Four ...

Spellzone June Round-Up

Fifty Idioms to Describe People We began this month by sharing part two of our list of 50 idioms used to describe people. You can read part one here. An idiom is a combination of words that has a figurative meaning separate from the actual definitions of the words used. There are an estimated 25,000 idioms in the English language so we hope our regular idiom lists help our second-language students make sense of some confusing translations. You can find more of our idiom lists on our blog archive. Make the Most Out of Your Spellzone Subscription The Spellzone website is full of great resources – from the courses themselves, to our spelling games, to our ...