Intermediate English
Lesson 14 - Animals
Spelling
On This Page
- Learn how to add suffixes to verbs that end in consonant-vowel-consonant.
Consonant-Vowel-Consonant
If a verb ends in consonant-vowel-consonant and the stress is on the last syllable of the word, double the last letter before adding a suffix (an ending) to the word (-ing or -ed).
begin - beginning
The word "begin" ends in a consonant, vowel, consonant and the stress is on the last syllable (begin). The n is doubled before adding the -ing ending.stop - stopping - stopped
The word "stop" ends in a consonant, vowel, consonant, and is only one syllable long (therefore the stress is on the last syllable). The letter p is doubled before adding an ending (-ing or -ed).open - opening - opened
The word "open" ends in a consonant, vowel, consonant but the stress is not on the last syllable (open). Therefore, the letter n is not doubled.
The exception to this rule is the letter w.
blow - blowing
Even though the word "blow" ends in a consonant, vowel, consonant, the last letter is not doubled because it ends in a w.
* In England (but not the United States) the letter l at the end of a word is doubled even if the stress is not on the last syllable.
| Verb | England | United States |
| cancel | cancelled | canceled |
| travel | travelled | traveled |
Practice
Change the verb to the present participle (-ing).
example
shop
(If the word is more than one syllable, the bold letters indicate which syllable has the stress.)
Recommend Passport to English to your friends!
Click on NEXT to go to the next page in the lesson.
