Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Coining their own spelling

In the process of marking my students' essays, I often come across wrong spelling for the past tense. They take the easy way out by adding ed to form any verb used in the past tense, not realising that there are irregular verbs whose spelling does not follow the normal spelling rule. Such words include take (took, taken), go (went, gone), and choose (chose, chosen).

These are some of the words in the past tense coined by my students.
1 I breaked a glass yesterday. [It should be broke.]
2 Her sister cutted her finger this morning. [The correct one is cut.]
3 My father taked me to the zoo last week. [It should be replaced with took.]
4 We choosed a shady tree under which we put our things. [It should have been chose.]
5 They hurted their legs while walking on the beach full of broken shells. [It should be hurt.]
6 Ali speaked to his neighbour about the matter two days ago. [The correct spelling is spoke.]
7 They digged a hole and buryed the dead cat in it. [The word should be replaced with dug.]
8 He keeped his money under his pillow. [It should be kept.]

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