This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2037.
Three tips to tackle spelling errors in English.
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Today we answer a question from a listener who made a big spelling mistake at work that caused a major problem.
How can you make sure that you catch spelling mistakes with words that are very similar?
Today, get three rules to conquer this challenge in English.
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Hey, Aubrey, I have a question for you today.
Oh, let's hear it.
So are you generally a good speller or not so good?
No.
I am actually.
That's probably one of my best skills.
I am an excellent speller.
I won spelling bees as a kid.
I was like in spelling competitions.
And most of my friends know and my family.
They're like if they're not sure about a word, they won't Google it.
They'll just ask me.
Just ask you.
I'm proud of that talent.
That's hilarious.
Did you ever go, like beyond your school competition, to the city competition or the States or something?
I mean, how far did you go?
Yes, I participated in district competitions and I won one for the city that was like at a mall.
It was kind of strange, but I got first place.
That's pretty cool.
Do you think it's because you read a lot or why do you think you're a good speller?
Yes, it's absolutely... at least as a kid, it was because I was always reading.
I was a total bookworm reading all the time.
And so I was seeing words spelled correctly all the time.
And then I also just had a good memory for it.
I think for paying attention to seeing words spelled correctly, right?
We're going to talk about that today.
We had a really great question from a listener about spelling errors.
And we are going to give you some really good tips about how to make sure that you are spelling words correctly in your writing.
Yes, I'm so excited to answer this question from our listener.
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Awesome.
Okay, let's dive into this question first of all.
Do you want to read it for us, Lindsay?
Yes, for sure.
Okay, this listener says, I hope you are well.
I'm writing this because I wanted to tell you that I love your podcast and the energy that you put into all of your programs.
I took the Connected Communicator course and some classes and I enjoyed them and they helped me in my path as an English student.
That's so great, Aubrey.
This student has been in our courses, listens to our show.
This morning, I had some real troubles and I need your help.
I would like you to talk with Michelle, Jessica or Aubrey about the real effect of that has incorrect spelling, or speaking in professional environments when it comes to those words that change the meaning just when you change one letter, for example, dump truck or dumb truck, striping or stripping.
Oh, for more context, i'm working in a construction company in new jersey and these two errors caused a big problem with the company's accountant.
She was so hard on me.
I hope you can help me.
Thank you so much, Efrain Angarita.
And yes, I've seen this student's name before.
I know the student has been in some of our courses.
Really good.
Really good.
Awesome.
Yes.
Thank you for this amazing question.
This is an especially big problem with writing, because often the only difference between two words will be one letter, and spell check on your computer might not catch it if both words exist.
So for example, right, the examples Efrain shared and also like hopping, hoping, weak, tweak, if you just forget the T. affect, which can be with A or E, sounds the same when you pronounce it, but it does matter when you write it.
So it's tricky.
There are so many words that are spelled very similarly, right?
Yeah.
And just think native speakers also struggle with this, especially affect and effect.
That's one that we see and there are a few others I'm sure we'll come up with more today.
But yes, native speakers struggle with this too.
So if you can get ahead on this, guys, you will be ahead of the game for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, so here's what's interesting, right?
Unfortunately, this exists with thousands of words.
So when I first started planning this episode, I was doing that.
I was like coming up with several of the most common.
And then, the more I looked at it, I'm like really, what we need here are tips to be able to catch this in our writing right.
There's no way.
If you are writing copy for a job like Ephraim here, there's no way you could possibly have a list of all of the thousands of words that just change one letter and mean something else.
Instead, you need the skills, the strategies to be able to catch those errors, because they exist in so many words.
Yeah, I mean, there's no way.
We do publish a lot of content here on All Ears English, but there's no way we can teach you every variation, every match here, every two word set here in the English language.
We just can't do it.
It's so much better if you have strategies.
So I'm excited to get into these today.
We're going to give our listeners three strategies in today's episode.
Yeah.
Great.
Catching these mistakes in your writing because it happens to natives.
It happens to everyone learning a language that there will be words that are spelled very similarly.
You can very easily miss these errors.
So let's dive into the first tip here.
So one of us, I think interviewed in our business English course.
It was you, Aubrey.
I'm excited for you to talk a little bit.
Who is Amanda Nosbish?
Am I pronouncing her name correctly?
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, tell us about her.
So the skill she shared the first one we're sharing here is when you proofread to do it from the bottom up.
And she is a grant writer that works for a nonprofit that I also worked for.
And I was able to interview her as part of our business course.
And this was one of many tips that she shared about grant writing, professional writing and proofreading your own writings.
And this is such good advice.
I actually hadn't thought about it.
And I've done this ever since I interviewed Amanda.
I've done this as I'm proofreading the book I was writing.
And I will now catch errors that I would not catch if I were reading it straight from beginning to end.
Because your mind skips things when it knows what's coming next.
And you don't catch every spelling error.
So this can really help.
Oh my gosh, more and more every year.
To be honest, I struggle with reading contracts, legal documents.
I just get so bored.
Maybe I'm just having attention issues.
I don't know, but I just skip over things very quickly.
I just don't want to read anymore.
I want to read a novel.
I want to read a book, but contracts or explanations, I want to skip.
So I see how this could really work if I don't give my brain the chance to skip.
Right, exactly.
And you're not alone, Lindsay.
Like a lot of you out there, what you're writing is when you're needing to proofread it.
Often it's not the most interesting.
You're not proofreading the novel that you're reading that's super interesting, right?
You're proofreading the copy you're writing for work, or maybe an email, things that might not be quite as engaging and our brains do want to skip.
And this is a great tip for keeping them from doing that.
I love that.
Such a good tip.
Okay, Aubrey, I really like tip number one.
What would be tip number two?
What else can we do to make sure that we catch these differences?
Yeah, this came up when you were asking me why I'm a good speller, right?
You guys must be reading in English.
The best spellers, the best writers are avid readers.
Because when you read a lot in English, you see words spelled correctly and you get better at catching your own mistakes.
Yeah, and I think...
Often so what my brain does.
I don't know if this is just a weird quirk of my brain.
It's possible that it is.
But my brain sees words, like when I read something, when I speak a word, I actually see it in my head, I see how it's spelled.
And that's why learning languages comes pretty naturally, because it becomes almost like a photographic thing.
I see the entire sentence in my head.
Does that happen to you or is that just me?
Am I crazy?
No, that doesn't happen to me at all.
So I'm fascinated by that.
But I can also see how that would make it harder for you to catch your errors, because if you're sort of visualizing it correct instead of paying attention to what's actually on the page, it would be even harder to catch your own errors.
It's more in spoken, both spoken language when I speak, I'll see the sentence.
It is in my mind.
So that helps a lot.
So reading any way that we kind of can have a bit of a photographic experience we're reading things, we're remembering them, we're seeing words spelled that helps too.
So I think reading is a great way to do it, Aubrey.
That's a way to see it in front of you.
For sure.
Absolutely.
And like you were saying, Lindsay, you want to be reading a novel.
Absolutely.
There's a certain amount of reading you're going to have to do for work or maybe reading the news, but you should definitely be reading something that is very engaging to you in English.
And I know this is tricky for every language learner, because when you really want to relax and just enjoy reading something, your go-to is going to be your native language.
This is hard.
I actually, oh, I have it right here.
I'm going to show you.
I just got a book in Spanish, An Hombre Llamado Ove.
Good for you.
Yeah, fantastic.
It's the same as the book, A Man Called Ove. or A Man Called Otto, which was just made into a movie.
And I was recommended this book.
I was like, I am going to read it in Spanish because I've seen the movie.
I sort of know the plot.
And so it won't be like, you know, as difficult for me to know what's going to happen.
And I'm really loving reading this in Spanish, but it is a challenge.
It's definitely easier for me to read a novel in English.
So this, we really have to push ourselves to read in English.
And yeah.
To read in the language you're learning.
Our second language.
Our second language.
So that's a good angle on it, right?
Get a novel in English, guys, for our listeners.
Or another thing you could do is sign up for a newsletter on your industry news in English, right?
Like, for example, if you're an engineer and you're normally doing business in Spanish, but you want to improve your English and read English, just sign up for an industry update newsletter in English.
Right.
Because that's such a good idea.
Yeah.
You want that information.
You need that information.
You need to know what's going on in your industry.
Like I read newsletters every morning about the podcasting industry to see about new developments acquisitions, who's getting hired, what's happening.
Right.
And you need to know those things.
So get access to what you need to know.
And then you won't want to skip over things.
You'll have to.
Absolutely.
Do you read any of those newsletters in one of the other languages you're learning, Lindsay?
No.
We need to challenge you here, right?
You should be reading one in Arabic or Spanish or Japanese.
Check in with me in a month and hopefully I will have started that.
We've issued you a challenge.
We're going to follow up.
I like it.
Very good.
Very good.
So what would be number three, Aubrey?
What can we do?
So number three is when you... Most of our writing we do on computer these days, right?
And so there are tools that can help us with catching spelling errors.
But these errors today are trickier for a lot of spell checkers because... both words likely exist.
And so unless your spell checker is able to also recognize incorrect grammar or a word that doesn't make sense in the meaning of the sentence, it's going to miss it.
It's just going to see it as a correct word, right?
For example, tweak and week.
You missed the T.
The average spell checker is going to ignore that because it's spelled correctly.
But there are tools out there that you can use that will also pay attention to the grammar.
You can Download an extension on your computer and that can really help you catch a lot of errors.
Yes.
I think Grammarly really pays attention to the context, right?
Because it's also correcting commas and things.
So it has to understand what you're saying.
And so it would autocorrect that week or tweak for you where your normal Microsoft Word spell checker wouldn't.
Right, Aubrey?
That's what you're saying?
Yes, exactly.
Right.
So take advantage of those tools with the newer technology.
Grammarly extension is a really good one.
There are tools that at your disposal that you can use to double check writing when it's very important like this.
That was sent in like they clearly got in trouble.
Who was it?
They were saying the company's accountant was hard on them.
They had submitted something that was very important.
It wasn't correct.
You can double check with tools on your For sure.
I started using Grammarly last summer.
I think we worked with them in a sponsorship and I'm still using them.
It's amazing.
And it also comes through if you have it installed in your browser.
It comes through in your email, even into our Canvas slides on my browser.
It comes into Canva, which is just incredible.
It's amazing.
It can help you in any, because yeah, it's not just going to be in your Word, right?
You need it in Canva, you need it in PowerPoint, in your emails.
And when you have it installed on your desktop, then it can help you in all of those.
Very powerful.
There's no shame in using your resources, guys, right?
No one is an expert.
We all need help in things.
And know i'm a native speaker of english, but i'm not ashamed using grammarly, it's okay.
Sometimes i miss a comma this is connection guys or i miss a spelling effect effect.
I might be writing quickly and i write it wrong.
That's normal for native speakers as well.
So don't be ashamed to use your resources, And actually this is one of the best ways to be able to focus more on connection, not worry so much about perfection if you're using the tools that can do that for you, right?
Let something else, let your computer worry about the perfection in your writing.
It's true, because then, if you spend all your energy on that email, focusing on getting it perfect, you're not leaving space to say how am I connecting with this person through my written word?
Right, am I making sure that the end of this email really feels open or is ending in the right way so they know what to do?
Right?
Yes, exactly.
I think that's such a great takeaway for this lesson.
First of all, two things, right?
Spelling errors are so difficult for both native speakers and language learners.
Do not make the mistake of trying to like memorize words that are similar, and that would be such a waste of time.
Instead, think about strategies for finding spelling errors in your writing.
But also remember, Let the computer take care of the perfection, right?
So you can worry about your language, making sure you're connecting.
Yeah.
And then also, of course, you know, just like we say, now that we have Google Maps, we don't want to totally forget how to, you know, take directions and find places.
Don't ignore.
Don't just turn your brain off to the corrections that Grammarly, for example, is making for you.
Pay attention and say, oh, yeah, that should have been a fact, not a fact with an E.
So maybe you'll not make that mistake next time.
So use it as kind of a tutor, like a learning tool.
Yes, right.
You can have every correction that's made be a learning opportunity for you.
That's such a good point.
I love that.
It's true.
Because someday you may not, you know, you can't plug it into everything.
Like if you're making a presentation on someone else's computer.
You're making a PowerPoint.
You need to know where that comma goes or where, how to spell it correctly.
Right, Aubrey?
For sure.
Yeah.
And we're all about wanting to, you know, that progress.
So, as we're seeing these corrections made and becoming better at recognizing them, then we feel that progress and it inspires us to keep, motivates us to keep improving.
I love it.
Such a good approach.
And thank you to Efrain for the question.
Such a good question, Aubrey.
Yes, absolutely.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
All right.
Take care.
Have a good one.
Bye.
You too.
Bye.
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