Common Errors in English Usage

Paul Brians' fantastic award-winning website by an English professor in Washington state  is THE place to go to learn the finer points of English, which, as we all know, is the easiest language on Earth. (or should I say, "on the Earth"? Or simply, "on earth"?)

He has short but very useful explanations of  usage questions like LOSE/LOOSE and many many more. Definatelydefinitlydefinetly ??? worth bookmarking!

Spelling Bee

Because I am a word freak, I like this dictionary for many reasons.

The feature I want to share with you today is both fun and educational. It's called Spelling Bee.

Here's how it works.
1. You go to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ and look for the Spelling Bee box.
2. Set difficulty level to "easy" so you don't get too frustrated too quickly and you get more common words that people actually use.
3. Look at the definition and guess the word. Take a few guesses. This is an important part of the exercise, so don't skip it!!
4. Then click on the speaker. You will here,... sorry, hear a man say a word. Click once more if you need to hear the word again.
5. Spell the word by typing it in the box as you say the letters in English out loud.
6. Click "answer" to see if you spelled it correctly.(Not "spelt"; that's British!)
7. Now try to use the word in a sentence of your own. If the word is completely new to you, and even if it isn't but you want to get some synonyms etc, click on it to see a definition and some example sentences, synonyms, etc
7. Click "next word" to continue.

Here's the link again.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

8. Play for 10 words and record your score and the date. The nexttime you play you can see if you are getting better.