This includes palindromes, such as " Maeda Ema" (spelled まえだえま Ma-e-da-E-ma) and " Yamada Maya" (やまだまや Ya-ma-da-Ma-ya). A much less common option is to reverse the phonemes themselves, which would usually give something totally unrecognisable unless you actually played the result backwards.Īlso note that some other languages, such as Chinese and Japanese, assign whole syllables to each character, so while the names really were spelled backwards in their native alphabet, their English equivalents got Lost in Translation. Conversely, reversing the syllables instead of the spelling can pass in writing, but may sound obvious when spoken out loud. You might spot the trope in writing, but it sounds like a genuine name when spoken aloud. For example, compare " Rotiart" (Roh-Tee-Art) with "traitor" (Tray-Tor) the letters are reversed, but the way English language rules work, the result comes out with noticeably different syllabic parsing and verbal rhythm. (And yes, it does spell "My Nana" if written backwards.) On a technical note, this trope is much more interesting depending on whether it's the sounds or letters that have been reversed, compared with whether it occurs in written or spoken form. The technical term for this is an "Ananym". Of course, this fails as soon as someone thinks to reverse the pseudonym. Sdrawkcab Alias: A character reverses their own name to disguise their identity.Alucard: This reversal of "Dracula" is so prevalent as to count as its own trope.To pair two characters, as Waldo and Odlaw.To disguise a Meaningful Name: "Rotiart" is less obvious than "Traitor".note Probably shouldn't be used with " Dog" itself, though. To barely avert A Dog Named "Dog": instead of a robot named Robot, here's a robot named Tobor. To reference a real person's name, usually an actor's or writer's name.To create an unusual name: " Trebor" seems more exotic than "Robert".Some writers like to invent names this way. If working with beginners, I hope you can have some fun with this activity, and that it helps build your learners’ phonemic awareness and spelling skills."Sdrawkcab" is spelled backwards. Here are some you might like to try: 3-sound Word choice is very important for this activity, because at least initially, you need words that are reversible in both their sounds and their spelling sequence. There are even a few two-syllable ones like civic, level and madam. Yup, same in both directions, pretty funny. You can throw in a few palindromes for a laugh, like mum, dad, nan, pop, stats, noon, toot, peep and deed. A more difficult game would involve saying the word backwards, sound by sound, blending into a word, then writing the word, adjusting spelling choices as necessary e.g. If keeping both letters and sounds exactly the same, this activity is limited to targeting two-letter vowel spellings in “oo” and “ee” words like “pool” and “keep”. When working with just one child, I ask the child’s parent to play too, and not-very-subtly encourage the parent to make a few mistakes, so that we end up with a grinning winner. If working in a group, children can take turns being the quiz master. If working on four sound words, words like “spin” (nips) and “nuts” (stun) can be reversed. For the hardline “I’m not picking up a pencil” brigade I also have an embarrassment of colourful and novelty pens and pencils, and coloured paper. Sometimes we use paper and pencil, and sometimes mini whiteboards, which are often somehow more exciting (novelty, I guess). This requires and builds awareness of the sounds in words (phonemic awareness) which is crucial for spelling. Looking for a fresh early-level spelling activity? Inspired by the old board game “Backwords”, lately we’ve been having competitions to write words backwards.įor example, I say “write nip backwards” and learners have to write “pin”.
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