When you don’t have the patience to decode every letter slowly and one at a time, unscrambling jumbled letters might seem tedious and overly difficult. But there is some good news. If you know where to start and how to attack the puzzle, unscrambling scrambled letters is achievable in a variety of ways. So we compiled a guide of 6 tips for you to use when you’re given a new letter puzzle.
Let’s break it down how we can do this:
- Usage of Digraph
- Search for Vowels and Consonants
- Word Fragments and Smaller Words
- Same Two Letters
- Practice
- Ask For Help
Let’s get started!
Digraph
One of the methods that you can utilize in unscrambling words is the usage of digraphs. So let’s learn what they are.
A digraph is a sequence of two successive letters whose pronunciation is a single sound (like ea in bread) or whose pronunciation is not the sum of two different pronunciations, (such as ch in chin where it’s either /t/ plus /sh/).
Common digraphs are: CH, EA, OI, SS, TH
Here are some examples:
CH – choice, cheese, chick, chair, chain, child
EA – sweat, cheat, stream, bear, break
OI – adroid, joint, lion, groin, disjoin
SS – chess, dress, mess, miss, bliss, class
TH – thumb, throat, thing, three, thin, throw
Search for Vowels and Consonants
In addition, vowels can help form the basis for constructing a word. How do we know this? Every syllable has one vowel, frequently in the middle, and the remaining sounds typically match common patterns you will find.
Among many consonant-containing syllables (groups of two or more letters that form a letter of the alphabet), many English words contain either a consonant-consonant sequence (CC), a vowel-consonant sequence (VC), or a vowel-vowel sequence (VV). Consequently, if there are very few vowels or few vowels and even more consonants, there is not a wide range of ways in which the letters can be shifted.
Add some more vowels in the template, add some more consonants on the sides, and then start trying different combinations of the letters. You will also begin to see some repeating patterns. For instance, consonant-vowel, consonant-vowel, is an example of four-letter words in the English language.
Here is another tip when you are looking for vowels.
Look for common two-letter consonant pairs like “th”. Example: OBTH can be converted to B O T H.
Don’t forget about the S!
Unlike other letters, the letter S performs two functions. We can use it to form a syllable within a word it forms, or add it to the end of a last word to make it plural. In games like Scrabble, the letter S is the most useful letter since it’s more versatile.
Word Fragments and Smaller Words
In order to become better at unscrambling words, it’s necessary to learn how to recognize certain types of words.Use roots, suffixes, and prefixes to remove characters that match common sequences (see below for most common ones), and then see what letters remain (you will be more likely to notice patterns with fewer letters). Word fragments can be combined with larger words if you encounter them. Using smaller words together can make what might appear to be a jumble of letters into a useful word. Looking for common sequences, such as ST, ED, or ING, which you may not recognize, can be a great help when unscrambling longer words.
Without using any suffixes or prefixes, all the possible words that can be made from those letters have to be rearranged. Mathematicians call this the permutation of letters. When there are six letters in a word, there are far more possible arrangements than if the word had only four letters. You should be able to see how a word might unscramble based on its letters when you put them through it. One strategy for dealing with this is combining common prefixes and suffixes to determine the meaning of the word.
Here is a list of most common prefixes and suffixes.
Pair Up the Same Two Letters
You probably tried this one, but we can’t go without mentioning that one way to come up with a word from an unscrambled sequence of letters is to look for double letters, and pair them up.
Check this place out for popular double letter words
Practice
Although time-consuming, trial and error is one of the best options for when you’re at a word jumble and it doesn’t offer any clues. Trying letter combinations until you find one that works is one of the best ways to solve a word jumble when you don’t know where to start. At first, it will be slow going, but eventually, you’ll find that your skills will start improving.
Ask for Help
It may be possible to get an answer or know someone who can help you out if you ask friends and family for help. The difficulty of figuring out a word from the jumble of letters can sometimes be frustrating, but when you do figure it out it’s worth it. As a last resort, you can always find help online at Dictionary.com or use a word unscrambler like Unscrambled Words. This is an excellent way to expand your vocabulary.
After reading this, you’ll be better able to breeze through future unscramble challenges. If you want to test yourself, play Scrabble or Words with Friends. And the most important thing, don’t forget to have fun. Good luck!