Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell national

hear itna·tion·al/'næʃənəl/adjectiveLong vowels

What it means: Belonging to or relating to a whole country.

In a sentence: The national flag of our country has three colors.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as nationel or nashional.

Same family: nationality, international, multinational, nationalism, nationalist. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “National” comes from the Latin word *natio*, meaning “birth” or “people born in the same place.” Over time, it shifted from talking about birth and people to describing someone who legally belongs to a particular country.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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