Growing up in Canada, I had to contend with learning two different spellings and pronunciations for words like "schedule", "colour", "omelette", "zed" vs "zee", "-ise" vs "-ize", and so on and so forth, so I had to come up with some little tricks to remember how to spell things. Sometimes I'd put on a mental Quebecois or English accent.
Other ones like diarrhea was "Die-err-HEE-uh", and now that I'm in Australia, it's most definitely "Die-err-HOE-uh". 😂
I also recite the ABCs more often than I should. I know a lot of you do, too.
What are some ways that you thought of to help you remember how to spell things? Any language counts.
31 May 2026 12:15
I'm convinced most people learning English have at some point resolved to pronouncing wed-nes-day and be-a-u-ti-ful in their head just to remember the spelling.
31 May 2026 12:27
The nice thing about my native language is that it's pretty phonetically consistent with its spelling, so whenever I needed to remember the spelling of a word in english I could just remember how it would sound when said in my native language :3
31 May 2026 12:29
What's your native language? English has so many rules and exceptions.
31 May 2026 12:40
I just thought of another one... Yogurt and yoghurt. And yes, I definitely do the Wed-nes-day thing, too!
31 May 2026 12:41
When I was a kid, i was taught "Oh U Lonely Duck", for Would, Could, Should.
31 May 2026 12:42
I also grew up in Canada, I do my spelling freestyle. Half my apps use my system settings so they use the Canadian dictionary, and the other half seems to default to US spelling
Sometimes I'd look up the spelling on a word, and you'd see the charts that show US, UK, and Canadian spelling for words. Usually the Canadian entry would show both other versions as acceptable.
At the end of the day, as long as you're understood, it doesn't really matter
Embrace the red squigglies, follow your heart and don't let your computer tell you what to do
31 May 2026 12:55
My language is overly complicated in many aspects, but I do appreciate the simplicity of spelling
31 May 2026 13:18
Separate has A Rat in it.
31 May 2026 13:21
And separate is what a paring knife does
31 May 2026 13:38
If you're a good typist there's a trick:
Picture a keyboard, then a pair of hands coming up to the home row. Then imagine the hands typing the word.
"Muscle memory" and how humans use written language means we 100% can type a word (spelled correctly) but not consciously remember the exact order of the letters. To our conscious brains, the exact order just isn't really important. But typing is like riding a bike, if you're good at you're not consciously typing every letter.
Like, when riding a bike you think "turn left" and your body pulls off a bunch of complicated movements and sleight adjustments. Think "type antidisestablishmentarianism" and your fingys do the spelling.
What's really useful with that trick, is using it to remember passwords and other "nonsense" strings. Just imagine yourself typing it over and over until you trick your unconscious mind into memorizing the sequence.
31 May 2026 14:22
It took me way too long to figure out what you meant and how this would be a help. I first thought it must be a song
31 May 2026 14:43