Intermediate English
Lesson 14 - Animals
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- 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.)
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