snowstranger ([info]snowstranger) wrote in [info]linguaphiles,
2012-02-09 21:42:00
  • Previous
  • Memorize
  • Share
  • Next

So you thought you were good at English spelling...

For all the non-native speakers out there: a spelling challenge!
You can choose between British and American English (BE seems to be harder) and three different levels of difficulty.


http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/media/spelling-bee-2011/


I personally find Fiendish with BE impossible to master. What about you?
Tags: american english, english, spelling

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch

    Your IP address will be recorded 

     
    Help
  • 88 comments
Previous
← Ctrl← Alt
  • 1
  • 2
Next
Ctrl →Alt →

[info]13chapters

February 9 2012, 21:10:29 UTC 3 months ago Edited:  February 9 2012, 21:13:56 UTC

I got 11/15 right on the fiendish level. I guess I hadn't realized how dependent on the wavy red line I had become!

eta: that was on US English. I just did it again with BE and got 10/15.

but I am a native speaker, I didn't notice this was supposed to be aimed at non-native speakers. :)

[info]varsan

February 9 2012, 21:12:06 UTC 3 months ago

thanks, a nice test

Imho, that's not that much about spelling as about your vocabulary. I just don't know many of the words at the Fiendish level (like the word 'fiendish' :)

[info]spicetones

February 9 2012, 21:12:14 UTC 3 months ago

Hey, that was fun! I got 15/15.

[info]crimsonmorgan

February 9 2012, 21:13:04 UTC 3 months ago

BE: Tricky 15/15, Difficult 12/15, Fiendish 5/15.

Some of the words are really hard to understand. (I'm only angry that I forgot an o in onomatopoeia >< Because I know how you spell it, my fingers just forgot iiiiiiiiiiit /sad-angry face)

[info]kegel84

February 9 2012, 21:27:04 UTC 3 months ago

I did alright on the "tricky" (13/15), okay on the "difficult" (8/15), but I sucked at "fiendish" (3/15) - I didn't even know half of the words on that level.

[info]xwingace

February 9 2012, 21:27:28 UTC 3 months ago

Typoed once on Difficult and only noticed once I'd submitted, 14/15. Did Fiendish three times, got 13/15, 11/15 and 13/15, all on BE.

Fun!

XWA

[info]emperor_spock

February 9 2012, 21:50:02 UTC 3 months ago

Doing consistently 11-12 out of 15 on BrE fiendish. The quiz seems (quite understandably) to be too keen on borrowed food terms and it's not exactly my cup of tea.

[info]thellamaqueen

February 10 2012, 14:29:01 UTC 3 months ago

yeah, I spent a lot of my time thinking "I wouldn't know half of these words if I didn't caption shows for Food Network every day". I guess my job is good for some things. ;)

[info]pretencioso

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]agatharuncible

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]alirose

February 9 2012, 21:55:31 UTC 3 months ago

I did horridly. I'm a terrible speller, but I also just found some of the words hard to understand. Being a native English speaker doesn't mean you can spell worth a damn. My 5th grade teacher taught me "that's what spell-check is for" ;)

[info]falena84

February 9 2012, 21:57:25 UTC 3 months ago

That's so much fun! Terribly addictive, though, especially if you have a bit of a competitive streak. Thank you for sharing.

[info]reisezeit

February 9 2012, 22:02:12 UTC 3 months ago

Seconded! I just practiced for a quarter of an hour until I finally got 15/15 on the fiendish level.

[info]lied_ohne_worte

February 9 2012, 21:58:34 UTC 3 months ago

13/15 on Fiendish - "burrito" completely threw me, because I would never have gotten it from the way it was pronounced. Anyway, the majority of the words in that test were loanwords from non-English languages, and as I'm native in one of the ones appearing and have a certain level of knowledge in three of the others, my biggest problem wasn't spelling, but rather connecting the words with the sometimes unexpected pronounciation.

[info]falena84

February 9 2012, 22:13:17 UTC 3 months ago

Same here.

[info]naobot

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]penguinfairy

3 months ago

  • Loading...
...and 2 more comments... from [info]alvdans, [info]drumkvadrat Expand

[info]gullinbursti

February 9 2012, 22:07:27 UTC 3 months ago

I have never heard some of the pronunciations they're using on some of these words. Interesting.

(('flak-sid) = flaccid? The dictionary says yes, apparently -- but I've never heard anything but ('flas-sid) before.)

[info]sorrowis_stupid

February 10 2012, 00:35:45 UTC 3 months ago

I've never heard flak-sid either! Was that on American English? I noticed a few other odd pronunciations as well.

[info]gullinbursti

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]dorsetgirl

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]dandelion

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]dorsetgirl

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]jetaimerai

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]its_anya

February 9 2012, 22:08:07 UTC 3 months ago

15/15 on BE Fiendish! :D Nearly got stuck on 'chamois', had to listen to it over and over! Sham-wah?

[info]its_anya

February 9 2012, 22:08:48 UTC 3 months ago

Speaking French helped a lot though. I got a lot of French loan words like restauranteur and patisserie.

[info]arctic_silence

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]tekalynn

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]carlyinrome

February 9 2012, 22:14:39 UTC 3 months ago


Why did you show me this? I am never going to get any work done ever again.

[info]sanee_ftw

February 9 2012, 22:15:51 UTC 3 months ago

I'm going under American English since I know I would be rubbish at British English because I don't really know the different spellings. (And...I didn't notice it was for non-native speakers....I feel everyone in this community thinks if one is a native-speaker that they are a master of their language and its spelling, grammar, etc. sometimes....

Tricky
14/15, missed "receive" due to mixing the e and i. (I mix up letters sometimes, but everyone assures me I do not have dyslexia xDD.)

Difficult
12/15, missed putrefy (always thought was putrify), obedience* (thought was obedient) and besiege (mixed e for i)

Fiendish
7/15. Missed secede (confused c for s), fusilli*, turmeric*, titillate (only one l), desiccate (only 1 c), narcissus* (thought was narcissist), variegated* and patisserie*
* got confused because of not knowing the word AND because the audio did not enunciate.

[info]sanee_ftw

February 9 2012, 22:18:45 UTC 3 months ago

Also, I thought I was above average at spelling all this time, but I guess I was wrong. This hurts since I won the school spelling bee in 5th grade....

[info]demarafis

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]sanee_ftw

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]arctic_silence

February 9 2012, 22:27:45 UTC 3 months ago

I did better on the British English than I did with the American English and I'm American. The one girl is kinda muddled. That said, THIS IS ADDICTING.

[info]sanee_ftw

February 9 2012, 22:57:50 UTC 3 months ago

I had difficulty understanding her and I think another voice too. I got words wrong because I didn't understand what they were saying.

[info]twilightsdawn23

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]sanee_ftw

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]manynames

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]pteropusvenom

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]spicetones

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]keestone

February 10 2012, 00:11:03 UTC 3 months ago

Some of the words were very hard to distinguish. I got 13 out of 15 on tricky because I heard "lacrosse" instead of "across" and "math" instead of "laugh", and I'm a native speaker.

[info]5x6

February 10 2012, 01:59:26 UTC 3 months ago

I am not a native speaker but I definitely heard khaki as "cocky". I listen to the way they pronounce both words on http://www.thefreedictionary.com, and I still think their pronunciation sounded more like cocky.

[info]goluath

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]bad_habit

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]agatharuncible

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]goluath

February 10 2012, 02:43:37 UTC 3 months ago

As a native speaker (IE), that Fiendish level was aptly named... 8/15 was the best I managed :( I found it hard with the really RP accented words. I got almost 15/15 on the other easier ones!

[info]tsukikage85

February 10 2012, 03:31:38 UTC 3 months ago

I could've sworn it said "cocky" - turns out I was supposed to type "khaki".

[info]spockollama

February 10 2012, 04:20:59 UTC 3 months ago

Awesome site, thanks for the link:)

[info]dustthouart

February 10 2012, 06:10:29 UTC 3 months ago

Ok, how in the world did they expect me to know that she was saying "idyll" and not "idle" or "idol"? There's a reason real spelling bees have a "use it in a sentence" option!

[info]dorsetgirl

February 14 2012, 22:26:52 UTC 3 months ago

Was it pronounced the same as idle or idol? That's definitely not standard!

[info]dustthouart

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]tinimaus

February 10 2012, 06:16:30 UTC 3 months ago

I consistently scored between 13 and 15 on the fiendish, and the errors were mostly on words I actually knew how to spell but just couldn't make out on my speakers. I didn't even hear the 'b' in 'bonhomie' (not exactly hard) and kept on thinking 'onomy? what the heck is onomy?'

Way too much fun though.

[info]spamsink

February 10 2012, 07:40:02 UTC 3 months ago

Something is wrong with their starting "b". I've heard "blizzard" as "wizard".

[info]spunos

3 months ago

  • Loading...
...and 2 more comments... from [info]thisboywonders, [info]agatharuncible Expand

[info]tisoi

February 10 2012, 07:15:17 UTC 3 months ago

Native US ENglish speaker. I got 8/15 on UK English & 11/15 on the US one. I speak French and if I heard chamois pronounced the French way, I would have gotten it. I wrote "shammy" instead. And why did she pronounce croissant as if it were French!?!?!?

[info]icanseenow

February 10 2012, 10:30:10 UTC 3 months ago

That's how you say it in english, like you say pain au chocolat and not payne oh tschocolat

[info]icanseenow

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]tisoi

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]ty_writes

3 months ago

  • Loading...

[info]shengsu

February 10 2012, 08:14:07 UTC 3 months ago

I'm not a native speaker, and I don't think my English is good enough even to watch movies for kids without subtitles, but my results is better than I imagined. AE: 13/8/2; BE: 13/9/8. Thats all because of international words like "trattoria", "karaoke". The trick is I know how it written in Russian - the same way, but cyrillic letters. Isn't it ridiculos, I thought it should be English, and half of words in it is recent borrow-words from Italian, Spanish, Japanese and so on?

[info]icanseenow

February 10 2012, 10:28:50 UTC 3 months ago

Non-native speaker and dyslexic.

Tricky 15/15

Difficult 9/15 ... I couldn't speall negligible, underrate, intrigue, threshold, illegitimate, monastery... though I understood them all :(

Fiendish 4/15 .. bloody depressing.

[info]spunos

February 10 2012, 13:58:25 UTC 3 months ago

Oh wow. I didn't even recognise half of the BE words on fiendish difficulty... how depressing. (I'm a non-native speaker, just for the record.)

I scored 8/15, so at least I know how to spell the other half.
Previous
← Ctrl← Alt
  • 1
  • 2
Next
Ctrl →Alt →
Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Facebook Twitter More login options
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…