SpellingIQ

How to spell foreign

foreign

Not foriegn or forein.

The trap

I before E

The word foreign puts E before I, and the misspelling foriegn swaps the two letters. The pair is unstressed and does not say ee, so the order cannot be heard, and a silent G follows it.

IE and EI are easy to swap, so the order has to be known. When the pair says 'ee' it is usually IE, but EI straight after a C that says S (receive), unless the IE came from a Y (policies); when it says 'ay' it is usually EI (eight).

French spelling: silent g beside n

What it means

adjective. from another country

Other words with this trap

Background

The conventions each language layer left in English spelling, with their sources, are on where English spelling comes from.

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SpellingIQ is a skill rating for spelling ability, not a clinical or psychometric IQ measure. American English is canonical; common variants are accepted.