Scrabble help

Scrabble is a great game for improving your vocabulary, both in your native and target languages. There’s nothing like a bit of competition to act as an incentive to learn.

According to a Lifehacker article, they key to winning at Scrabble is knowing all the two letter words. Doesn’t sounds too hard, right? Well, there’s 124 of them.

aa ab ad ae ag ah ai al am an ar as at aw ax ay ba be bi bo by ch da de di do ea ed ee ef eh el em en er es et ex fa fe fy gi go gu ha he hi hm ho id if in io is it ja jo ka ki ko ky la li lo ma me mi mm mo mu my na ne no nu ny ob od oe of oh oi om on oo op or os ou ow ox oy pa pe pi po qi re sh si so st ta te ti to ug uh um un up ur us ut we wo xi xu ya ye yo yu za zo

(Source: SOWPODS via Lifehacker)

Oh yes.

But help is at hand. Tom Rees has written scripts to create mnemonics so that all the letter combinations can be remembered. So for ‘a’ he came up with ‘birthdays mangle wax’. The letter ‘a’ can go with each letter in the mnemonic to create a new word. Simple!

So if you’ve got some IT skills and some time on your hands, give it a go in your target language – you’ll be the Scrabble King or Queen before you know it!