How do you improve your spelling and grammar?
Unfortunately, you cannot simply get better at those in 24 hours, but I do have some tips so as to make your learning more effective.
First of all, read a LOT. Yes. Read whatever you enjoy reading. Personally, what has been helping me most is reading novels and longer articles. That way, you expose yourself to a wide variety of sentence structures, improving your grammar. Moreover, for you to read, you have to... well, read. That per se helps your spelling.
Shall we test your spelling?
Below, you will find an exercise extracted and adapted from Objective Proficiency, a book published by Cambridge English.
Read through the following advertisement and find the nouns which are spelt wrongly (tip: there are only 9 misspellings).
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Look around. You’re in the midst of a global maelstrom. A swirling mass of converging technologies and new business oportunities unleashed by the Internet. All waiting to be harnessed by large IT service providors. As one has said: ‘We’ve focused our energy and resauces on creating technology to solve the unique problems of thousends of individual businesses. Last year alone we invested $2.5 bilion of our global IT and telecomunications revenus on R & D. Innervations that keep your company one step ahead of the Internet. And light years ahead of the compettition.’
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Could you spot the mistakes? Below, you will find the correction of that exercise.
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Look around. You’re in the midst of a global maelstrom. A swirling mass of converging technologies and new business opportunities unleashed by the Internet. All waiting to be harnessed by large IT service providers. As one has said: ‘We’ve focused our energy and resources on creating technology to solve the unique problems of thousands of individual businesses. Last year alone we invested $2.5 billion of our global IT and telecommunications revenues on R & D. Innovations that keep your company one step ahead of the Internet. And light years ahead of the competition.’
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How did you do? If you identified at least 7 misspellings, great job! On the other hand, if you could not do so, fear not. All you have to do is follow my tip (read, read, read) and you will be just fine.
Now, as far as grammar is concerned, you have to know some rules. If you are asking yourself where to find them, I have a special gift for you. I will leave a link below where you can find the 100 Golden Grammar Rules which are bound to help you a LOT in the near future.
Last but not least, you must exercise your skills (including grammar) to enhance them. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. So download an ebook with exercises, write texts, or whatever. Just use grammar and you will learn it.