Spelling Challenge

What you are actually practicing

English spelling is not phonetic, and the words that trip people up are almost always the ones where a sound could plausibly be written two or three ways. This game is built around exactly those words: the ones with a doubled consonant you cannot hear, a silent letter you cannot guess, or an -ance versus -ence ending that follows no reliable rule.

Reading a word correctly and writing it correctly are separate skills. Most people recognise accommodate instantly but still produce accomodate when typing. This game trains the second skill by forcing you to choose.

How the game works

You see four spellings of the same word and must pick the correct one. There is no definition and no sentence — the whole task is visual discrimination, which is what makes it hard. A countdown runs, and a miss reveals the right answer immediately. Your score and best score stay in this browser only.

Easy draws from the most common words. Medium widens the pool. Hard uses the full list, including the ones that look wrong even when they are right.

Memory hooks that actually work

Accommodate has two c's and two m's. It is large enough to accommodate both.

Definitely comes from finite — there is no a. Say de-finite-ly and the a disappears.

Separate has an a in the middle: there is a rat in separate.

Necessary is one collar and two sleeves: one c, two s.

Receive and believe both follow i before e except after c — so receive but believe.

Calendar ends in -ar, like solar and lunar.

Embarrass doubles both the r and the s. Being embarrassed twice would do that.

Occurrence keeps the r from occur: occurrence.

Restaurant has au in the middle — the same au as in restaurateur.

Tomorrow is one m, two rs: to-mor-rrow.

Beautiful is beau plus ti plus ful — and the eau is the same French ending as in bureau.

Grammar ends in -ar, not -er. Grammar is not a grammer.

Knowledge keeps the d from knowledge. Say it as know-ledge and the d is audible.

Library drops a syllable when spoken, not a letter when written: li-bra-ry.

Maintenance comes from maintain, so it keeps the n: maintenance.

Genuine ends in -ine, like genuine leather and machine.

Height keeps the h at both ends — the same -ht as in weight and slight.

Common mistakes, and the fix for each

Mistake: trusting the sound. English spelling cannot be reconstructed from pronunciation. The fix is to remember how the word looks, not how it sounds.

Mistake: over-applying i before e. The rule has an exception after c, which is why receive and believe differ. The fix is to learn the pairs together.

Mistake: guessing from familiarity. All four options look plausible; the wrong ones are chosen precisely because they look right. The fix is to look for the specific doubled letter.

A short, honest FAQ

Do I need to install anything? No. It runs in any modern browser.

Is this useful for learners of English? Yes, but be warned: these are the words native speakers also get wrong.

Why are the wrong options so close? Because a far-fetched misspelling teaches nothing. The distractors are the misspellings people actually produce.