Teacher, should I double that consonant?

Hello, everyone. This is Noelia and welcome to English with Noelia.

Hola a todos. Soy Noelia y bienvenidos a English with Noelia.

Guys, my students had this questions today: Teacher, How do we know if we have to double the consonant when adding a suffix to the word that ends in a consonant?

I froze for a second and said, truthfully, I don't have the answer for you now. I sometimes get confused myself!

It's not that easy to know what the rules are. In fact, English speakers are not big on rules. What can I say?

So today I'm here to give you some guidelines about adding suffixes to words that end in consonants and WHEN we need to double that consonant.

1. If a one-syllable word ends in a single vowel + a consonant, then you double that final consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel or a 'y'. I'll say that again: if a word has one syllable, double the final consonant ONLY if the word ends in one vowel + one consonant and the suffix begins with a vowel or a 'y'.

Let's take the word big, for example. B-I-G

There's a vowel and then a consonant. When we add the suffixes -er to make it bigger or -est to make it biggest, we double the 'g': b-i-g-g-e-r or b-i-g-g-e-s-t.

The same goes for some verbs:

For example, run (r-u-n) becomes running, r-u-n-n-i-n-g or stop becomes stopped: (s-t-o-p) goes to s-t-o-p-p-e-d.

Please note: if the last three letters of the word do NOT follow the CVC pattern DON'T double the last consonant.

For example, the word rest becomes rested or resting with just one 't'.

I told you before we don't like following rules in English, right?

Here are some exceptions:

When we talk about the plural of the word 'yes', we say yeses. Y-e-s turns y-e-s-e-s (no double 's'). Sew turns into sewing, s-e-w-i-n-g (no double w). And box would be boxing, b-o-x-i-n-g (again, no double x).

So what happens if it's a multiple-syllable word. The same rules apply if the word ends in CVC and the accent, the force of the pronunciation is on that last syllable. So, if the accent is in the final syllable, double the final consonant before a suffix that begins with a vowel or a 'y'.

For example: refer - referred (double that 'r'); occur - occurring (also double the 'r') o-c-c-u-r-r-i-n-g.

The same goes for control. Control (with one 'l') goes to c-o-n-t-r-o-l-l-e-d, controlled.

Again, we have an exception: obey. Obey ends in the consonant 'y' but you don't double the 'y' to say obeyed or obeying; you just add the suffix.

Bare in mind, if the accent shifts when you add the suffix, don't double the consonant.

Example: refer + -ence is reference. Don't double that 'r'.

So, guys, now I'm going to tell you when we do not double that final consonant before any suffix.

If you have a one-syllable or a multi-syllable word that ends in a consonant preceded by more than one vowel (VVC), we will no, NOT double that final consonant.

For example: dream, to dream goes from d-r-e-am-m to dreaming d-r-e-a-m-i-n-g. Same goes for rain. To rain, r-a-i-n goes to raining or rained (spell)

And, here we go again with the exceptions: quiz, q-u-i-z goes to quizzed or quizzing with a double 'z' (q-u-i-z-z-e-d or q-u-i-z-z-i-n-g).

Another instance when where will not double that final consonant is when the word ends with more than one consecutive consonant.

For example: to jump j-u-m-p becomes jumping (j-u-m-p-i-n-g) or jumped (spell) Trust, you spell it t-r-u-s-t and when you add -ing it's trusting t-r-u-s-t-i-n-g, just one 't'.

That's all for today, guys. Let me know if you have any questions and remember you can find this transcript in my webpage www.englishwithnoelia.com.