Writing
I'm trying to teach myself spelling and grammar in preparation for the new job, where it is likely that some writing will be required, and because I'd like to start writing fan fiction again.
This stuff is HARD there are so many different rules and exceptions and no one ever told be this stuff in school. Until yesterday it was a complete mystery that spelling could be made easier by understanding root words, and prefixes and suffixes, and that there were patterns, and rhymes to remember words. I'd grown up with the impression that the only way to spell was just to learn long lists of words, and since learning the whole dictionary seemed impossible, I never really tried, just excepted that I was a bad speller.
At uni I was told time and time again that I was losing grades because of bad spelling and grammar. I was sad, but like I said I just excepted that it was a fact I couldn't change; I thought perhaps there was a spelling and grammar gene that I simply didn't posses because it seemed like it came to everyone as naturally as breathing, but no matter how hard I tried it did not come to me. It sounds laughable but no-one had ever told me there were rules I just thought I wasn't smart enough to get it.
Looking back though to all my uni teaches who mentioned my spelling and grammar, no one ever corrected me, or told me why I was wrong, and no one ever offered to help me. This only fuelled my belief that it was a natural process or that I just wasn't thinking hard enough, and if I couldn't think hard enough than I was just to stupid to get it.
I will never get though why I was told when I was really young that I couldn't read, because I couldn't spell. To me if I understood the words on the page that was reading. As far as I'm aware you don't have to be able to spell a word to know what it means. You don't even have to know how to pronounce it for that matter.
This stuff is HARD there are so many different rules and exceptions and no one ever told be this stuff in school. Until yesterday it was a complete mystery that spelling could be made easier by understanding root words, and prefixes and suffixes, and that there were patterns, and rhymes to remember words. I'd grown up with the impression that the only way to spell was just to learn long lists of words, and since learning the whole dictionary seemed impossible, I never really tried, just excepted that I was a bad speller.
At uni I was told time and time again that I was losing grades because of bad spelling and grammar. I was sad, but like I said I just excepted that it was a fact I couldn't change; I thought perhaps there was a spelling and grammar gene that I simply didn't posses because it seemed like it came to everyone as naturally as breathing, but no matter how hard I tried it did not come to me. It sounds laughable but no-one had ever told me there were rules I just thought I wasn't smart enough to get it.
Looking back though to all my uni teaches who mentioned my spelling and grammar, no one ever corrected me, or told me why I was wrong, and no one ever offered to help me. This only fuelled my belief that it was a natural process or that I just wasn't thinking hard enough, and if I couldn't think hard enough than I was just to stupid to get it.
I will never get though why I was told when I was really young that I couldn't read, because I couldn't spell. To me if I understood the words on the page that was reading. As far as I'm aware you don't have to be able to spell a word to know what it means. You don't even have to know how to pronounce it for that matter.