Spelling - awful.

From reading your posts, I would have never guessed that!

Nor would I.

I found that very interesting, irishk, thanks for the link.

You're welcome

Thank you Irishk and Plainoldme - I always second guess myself, so a compliment like this makes my day

If you don't mind, CJ, could you tell me how old you were when you made the switch to English, that is, when did English become your everyday language?

JTT, I was 22 years old when I first moved to the United States.

Thank you, CJ. Another couple of questions, if you would be so kind [your choice entirely].

On a scale from 1 to 10 how would you rate your English speaking ability when you arrived in the US? Do you still retain any German accent in your English speech?

Oh yes I do have an accent, but not everyone detects that it's German. A lot
of people think it's Scandinavian - perhaps due to the fact that southern Germans pronounce words softer.

My (British) English was probably a 4 - you learn so much in school but in
reality you can use only a limited amount in everyday life.

I have no trouble recognizing Urs53's accent. Pretty much middle class Omaha, Nebraska. Don't know how she does that.

You are amazing, Cjane. You got here at 22, and are this clear. I admire you. Not to gush, we can argue points, and probably will. I started to learn italian at 50, but not imbedded in the country. I was grammar oriented. I remain a fool. So, I appreciate the big leap.

Well, you and I had no trouble. First, I fell up the step as I was looking to make sure you could get in my cousins' front gate. Then burst out laughing. And you were friendly back, not laughing at me. (My cousin has this set of steps and walk over koi pond thing. I've been a koi pond designer and will remain silent about this). This was all when my eyes were at their extreme worst, better now. I do not remember any not understanding. Perhaps I couldn't hear once or twice, usual for me, but not important. I think you are easy to hear..

My name is msolga & I'm a terrible speller, too. (You are not alone, Ceili!) It wasn't always this way, though. But I note my spelling is getting worse all the time. Without my trusty spellchecker I'd be nothing!

Make a list of 5 of the words you cant spell. Check the spelling in a dictionary or ask someone.
Each day rewrite one word 10 (or more) times correctly. Each time you write the word say it out loud then say the letters out loud.
Write a sentence with the word in it. say the sentence out loud.
one word per day
You may need to repeat the excercise several times over a couple of weeks.
Essentially you are focing your mind (by repetition) to lock in the correct spelling. Sports people do the same kind of thing but use muscles instead of mind. First they get the muscles to do it the right way right then practice until the correct movement is an automatic response.

Just realised I have a problem with sentence. My auto response is sentance

Thank you, osso. Yes, those steps were kind of tricky, I had to be careful too!
-----

Ceili, if you really want to change your spelling then write a passage as you
normally would and physically check your dictionary for all misspelled words
and then write it down by hand. Seeing the word and writing it down is a double
memory booster.

I'm generally a good speller, except when I mess up, top of class, blah blah, or maybe second to Ronnie Miller. Clearly I was lucky on spelling brain, though I'm not clear as to value. But I still mess up on some of what I think of as primitive differences, hear and here, for example, that I've know for many years. I think there is a brain format that remembers the first concept.

I'm glad to see that link by irishk that might explain it. I've a brilliant cousin who is dyslexic. I've been good on spelling, whoo hoo, but she is a sharp analyst.

I used to scrawl my notes in school. I am capable of severely careful lettering, on an architectural plan, but that is like a giant rigging of ropes, not natural. My notes were all over the place. I always transcribed them, as a sort of self translation, and first pass.

I wonder what people do now, who skip all that..

You're welcome. You know, people get so bound up in complaining that they all too often forget to compliment.

Spelling well is over-rated. Especially in the days of spell check, ginger, co-writer, All The Right Type, Dragon etc software.

I spell WAY worse when I type than when I write. I'll even spell my name wrong when typing. Kudos to spell-check.

Whew... thanks for that article Irish. It actually helped me a lot.
I know I'm not the worst speller out there, but I'm extremely conscious of my mistakes. I'm not and never have claimed to be perfect, but jeez I'd just like to learn from my mistakes. Is that too much to ask??
I'll write this and underline all the mistakes spell checker picks up.
I've taken tests and I have a very high comprehension level and a fairly large vocabulary just like the author of the article.
I have and use my large collection of dictionaries a lot, several are in English - Oxford - Websters, and many in foreign languages. I can decifer most latin languages pretty well.
I took French and Italian as a kid. I tend to spell words with a French manner, like lettre or turning TION words into SION or vice versa. Because I'm a Canuck and we use some Brit spelling, I'm constantly double guessing myself and adding u's where they don't belong and dropping them at times because spell checker is American.
Like the author, I learned phoentics too. We switched to the metric system at the same time, so mabey this is why???

Anyway, I thank you all for participating and not making fun of me.
It's the bane of my existance. And for the record, Iteneary has always been a problem for me too.

Dadpad, beleive me when I tell you, I have done the writting thing and when I think I've got it down pat, the next time I type... same old, same old.

Calamity, for the record, I've always thought you wrote beautifully.

Ta, Ceili

I'll add to this that plenty of other architects have been like me, though I have known precision machine types... not usually the most creative.