Shortform
“already” in braille
Written a-l-r — 7 letters cut to 3 letters of abbreviation, then written in 3 cells. That is 4 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1, then dots 1-2-3, then dots 1-2-3-5
Unicode ⠁⠇⠗ — 7 letters in 3 cells
How to recognise it
a-l-r, and that is the whole trick of the al- group: every one of the six is simply the word cut short at the front. None of them reaches into the middle of the word for a letter. The r on the end is also the word “rather” when it stands alone, which is the sort of collision that makes the al- group worth drilling.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “already” loses 4 letters — e, a, d, y — to become alr. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | already | 7 cells |
| Abbreviated | alr | 3 letters |
| Written | 3 cells |
It carries no endings
No English word begins with “already” except the word itself, so there is nothing for an ending rule to decide here. These 3 cells write the bare word and nothing else. “good” is the opposite case — it carries seven different endings.
Learn it with the al- words
This is one of 6 shortforms built to the same shape — a-l, then what tells them apart — and the set is far quicker learned together than one word at a time: almost (alm), also (al), although (alth), altogether (alt), always (alw).
What these 3 cells mean elsewhere
Every cell here has other jobs, which is where misreadings come from:
| Cell | Dots | What it is elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the letter a | |
| 1-2-3 | the letter l; the word “like” standing alone | |
| 1-2-3-5 | the letter r; the word “rather” standing alone |
Check your own text
The translator writes “already” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-three.
“already” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: alr in 3 cells, not 7 letters.
