Quiz playing is a wonderful way to increase your knowledge of English as a Second Language. Remember that all of our ESL quizzes have titles that are both friendly and technical at the same time… In the case of this quiz you might like to tell your friends about “Spelling Bee” but no doubt your teachers will talk about the “Homophones quiz”! If you hear a technical term and you want to find a quiz about the subject then just look through the list of quiz titles until you find what you need.
It can be remarkable sometimes, what versatile use English makes of just 26 letters to represent its whole variety of sounds. Sometimes two very different words will sound alike but not look alike; while another pair might look alike, yet sound different. This is called a homophone.
See how you get on with these homophones!
'Pour' = to tip some liquid out of a container, so that the liquid runs under control into another container ('Pour me a coup of tea'); we also talk of it 'pouring with rain'. 'Pore' = a small hole in one's skin ('He seemed to be sweating out of every pore'; it also has another further meaning); 'paw' = an animal's foot. They all sound more or less indistinguishable.
'Too' sounds like 'to' (the infinitive particle and preposition: 'I want to go to London') and 'two', the numeral (= 2 !). But only this spelling can be used as the intensifier (' ... too drunk to keep himself awake').
Be careful when making/using the past form of verbs such as 'drop => dropped', 'trap => trapped', 'log => logged' etc.: the single consonant on the end of the present form needs to be doubled in order to keep the sound of the vowel short (thus keeping the sense easier to recognise). Meanwhile, 'off' and 'of' (though each very common) are not the same word. In some parts of the country you may even hear, for instance, a parent say to an adventurous child, 'Get down off of there'!
... And finally: don't confuse 'one' ( = 1 !) with 'won', which sounds the same and shares two letters, but doesn't mean the same thing. In a knockout sports championship (e.g. Wimbledon), several players go in at the start, and everybody loses eventually ... apart from The One Who's Won! ~ the Champion, Andy Murray or whoever.