Many everyday words cause considerable difficulty in writing. Even if related directly to the educational process. It is not easy to understand how to spell “classmates”, “classmates” and “classmates”, although all three words obey the same rules. To avoid mistakes, it is enough to study the meaning of the term, situations in which it will be appropriate.
Who is surrounding you?
Classmates are people from the same group as you. By analogy with students from the same class or students of the same course, groups at universities help to identify a specialty, to distinguish from the entire stream of people to obtain specific theoretical and practical knowledge. They have their own elders and curators who help to integrate into the rhythm of the university’s life, find textbooks, and get used to the schedule. Community members will quickly learn not only how to spell “classmates”, but also how they live.
How to decipher the term?
Here is a standard continuous compound word. “From one group” are divided into two roots:
Then they are fused with a connecting vowel. Attempts to find words with the same root will lead to nothing: they are completely unsuitable for verification. Other criteria apply here.
Doubled “n” - inheritance from the dictionary word “group”. It must be remembered, and then used in all derivatives. By analogy with the "class".
There is also the risk of accidentally replacing the letters “o” with “a”. How to deal with this problem? “One” - from the dictionary and easy to remember, at the same time, only the letters “e” and “o” can combine the roots in the words. As a result, “classmates” are written as two vocabulary words with an intermediate “o”.
And if a hyphen?
Exceptional situations are possible when there is a desire to write “one-graders”, following an incorrect interpretation of the rules. The Russian language has built-in special protection mechanisms against this. If only “e” and “o” are the connecting vowels, you don't need any hyphens. Write together. And if there are no vowels, you need to put a short dash between the parts of the word. Nothing complicated!
Is it right to write like that?
Some doubts arise about the validity of the term as such. People often ask not how “classmates” are spelled, but is it worth it to include the word? Occasionally it is allocated programs for working with text, and in dictionaries it can be difficult to find. Do not worry! There are classes at school, groups at higher educational institutions, feel free to use the analogy with “classmates,” and none of the professional philologists dare to object. The main thing - do not make mistakes in writing.