how to spell: language of spelling

Welcome to the How to Spell channel from howtospell.co.uk In this video we're looking at the language of spelling and a few grammar words too. Ever wondered what vowels, consonants, verbs, adverbs nouns, pronouns, adjectives, root words, compound words, prefixes and suffixes mean? It's important to know these terms, especially if you're serious about improving your spelling because they come up again and again when learning spelling rules and understanding how words are put together.

Firstly, we need to understand vowels. What are they? Do you know?
Vowels are (a e i o u) and sometimes y

Consonants? Well, they're the rest of the alphabet bcdfghjklmnpqrstuvqx(y) z

You need to know what vowels and consonants are when spelling some plurals, and also when sticking suffixes on the end of words, and also whether to double up the end consonant or not

What's a root word? Or sometimes called a base word. It's just that. A root word that we can add a prefix and suffix to make another word - comfort /uncomfortable, honest /dishonest/ dishonestly, happy /unhappy, legal/ illegal/ illegally

prefixes are little words that go before a root word to change its meaning. un+certain = uncertain, mis+understanding = misunderstanding, il + legal = illegal, ir + regular.
suffixes are little words that are added to the end of a word to change the way that a word is used = want + ed = wanted/ starting / incredible
What's a noun? It's a word which names things or somebody - table, chair, London, Joanne...A proper noun is the actual name of the person, place, thing and begins with a capital - Joanne, London, Heathrow Airport.

Adjectives describe nouns - big city, red dress, difficult words, fast car, excited, interesting

What's a verb? A word showing action or being a doing word - work, watched, are, ran.

Adverbs describe verbs and usually end in -ly but not always - speak slowly, walk quickly, don't drive fast

Homophones = same sound but different meaning and different spelling - there, their, they're / to, too, two/ by, buy, bye / aisle, I'll/ wear, where, were.

compound words - two words together that make one word - time + table = timetable/ hair+dresser = hairdresser/ toothbrush/football/armchair/ laptop

Can you remember what these are?

A vowel, consonant, verb, a noun, a proper noun, root word, compound word, prefix, suffix?

Don't beat yourself up if you've already forgotten.
Learning anything takes a little effort. You must practice and go over things again and again to put it in the long term memory.

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