English · English
Spelling that lies, stress that matters, vowels that glide.
Germanic (West) · compare with German
Sounds
43 phonemes, 94 spelling rules. Trace any word letter by letter.
Words
284 concepts carry a English form. Switch English on at the top and browse any field.
Grammar
12 of 12 chapters written.
Sound snapshot
English spelling cannot be fully reverse-engineered: it froze around 1500, then the vowels moved (the Great Vowel Shift) and the words kept arriving from French, Latin and Greek with their own habits. What the tracer CAN show: the consonant digraphs are reliable (sh, ch, th, ph, ng, ck), the 'magic e' rule usually works (mad/made, bit/bite, hop/hope), and r colours the vowel before it (car, bird, for). Vowels in unstressed syllables collapse to /ə/ — the single most important thing to know about the sound of English. Transcription here is a British (RP-like) reference; the note column flags American differences. Every vocabulary entry carries a hand-verified transcription — trust that over the tracer.
Grammar chapters
Articles
the, a — definite and indefinite, and how they bend to gender and number.
Nouns & gender
Does the language sort nouns into classes, and can you guess which?
Plurals
How to make more than one.
Pronouns
I, you, he/she/it, we, they — subject, object, and the formal 'you'.
Present tense
Regular verbs now, and the handful of irregular ones you can't avoid.
Negation
Saying no: where the 'not' goes.
Questions
Yes/no questions and question words.
Word order
Where the verb goes, where adjectives go, what moves and why.
Past tenses
Finished vs ongoing, spoken vs written past.
Future & conditional
Will, going to, would.
Adjectives
Agreement, position, comparison.
Prepositions
In, on, at, to — the small words that never translate one-to-one.
Words by field
🏠Home
The house, room by room — the words you touch every day.
🌲Nature
Out of the city: landscapes, weather, creatures.
🧩Little words
Adverbs, prepositions, connectors — small words that carry the sentence.
🧱Essentials
The bedrock: numbers, yes and no — the words you need on day one.
🧰Trades & expertise
Jargon of people who do things with their hands — and their heads.
💭Concepts
Abstract words: feelings, ideas, character.
🎭Register
The same idea said in the street, at the office, or in a textbook.