English Spelling: When to Double Consonants

Hi, my name is Alex, and welcome to this lesson on doubling consonants for one and two-syllable

words.

Now the rules that I'm going to give you today apply when you want to change a word into

either the comparative, superlative, progressive, or past form.

For example, when we're talking about the comparative and superlative forms, we're talking

about words that end in -er and -est.

For example, if we have the word "big," for, if you want to change that into the comparative,

we would say "bigger," b-i-g-g-e-r, ends in -er.

For superlative, it is -est, "biggest."

Now when we're talking about the past form, as well as the progressive form, we're talking

about words that end in -ed for the past, and we're talking about words that end in

-ing for the progressive.

Okay, so let's take a look at these rules.

Number one, for one-syllable words.

We call this the CBC rule.

So you might be asking yourself, "What does CBC stand for?"

Very simply, CBC stands for consonant-vowel-consonant.

So if a one-syllable word ends in a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern, we double the last letter and add

our ending.

For example, let's, it works better if you actually have an example.

So let's look at the word "stopped."

If you want to say "stopped," if you want to put it in the past form, we see here the

last three letters are t-o-p.

Again, it's a one-syllable word, "stopped," one syllable, ends in C-V-C, so we double

the last letter, P, and we wanted to say "stopped," right, so we just add -ed, "stopped."

Same thing for this word, "drip," D-R-I-P, "drip," one syllable, C-V-C.

So we would double the last P.

So let's say we want to say something is "dripping," so we would go P, double the P, I-N-G, okay,

and let's use the superlative form of E-S-T, or "bigest," for "big."

So again, "big," most basic form, it's a three-letter word, B-I-G, follows the consonant-vowel-consonant

rule.

So we want to say "bigest," so we double the last letter, add E-S-T, okay.

Rule two, this is a stress rule, and this applies to two-syllable words.

So if we have a word like "enter" or "exit," where is the stress on the word?

It's in the first half of the word, the first syllable of the word.

So when you say "enter," "exit," the stress is on the "eh," "eh."

So when the stress is on the first syllable of a word in a two-syllable word, we do not

double the last letter.

So we would simply say, if you want to say "entering," I-N-G, we would just add the

I-N-G.

Same with "exit," again, "exit," the stress is on the first syllable, "exit," "exit,"

right?

The first syllable is more distinct.

So we would just say, if you wanted to say "we exited the theater," you would just

add E-D.

Okay, so what do you think happens when the stress is on the second syllable?

So here we have two other words, we have "admit" and we have "begin."

These are two words where the stress is on the second syllable.

"Admit," the stress, again, second syllable, "begin," stress on the second syllable.

In these cases, it has to follow the CVC rule, by the way, it still has to go vowel, sorry,

consonant, vowel, consonant, and we double the last letter.

So if we want to say "admitting," "admitting," you just double the last T.

Okay, and again, this is "begin," follows CVC, G-I-N, consonant, vowel, consonant, second

syllable is more stressed than the first, double the last letter, and we're just going

to put "beginning" for this one.

Okay, so now that you have that down, why don't you go to www.engvid.com and check out

the quiz to see if you fully got it.

All right, thanks again for watching, my name is Alex, take care.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, one more thing.

There is an exception to the rule, okay, when you have a word that ends in a Q-U-I plus

a consonant pattern, it actually does follow the doubling consonant rule.

Now why that is, because Q-U, when you pronounce the word "quit," the Q sounds like a K, right?

"Kuh-wit," "quit," you hear the "wuh" sound, it's a W. Okay, so if you have the Q-U, it

actually makes a W sound, which makes this a consonant, vowel, consonant.

So we would have to double the last letter, let's say we want to say "quitting," "quitting."

Same with "equip," so here we have Q-U, Q-U-I, "equip."

So this is kind of like a W sound, or K-W, sorry, K-W sound, "ip," consonant, vowel,

consonant.

Here you're working on the sounds, Q-U-I.

So you would have to double the last letter, if you want to say "equipped," you would write

P-E-D.

Okay, so that's the exception, remember that one, see you later.