In this paper, we study the approximation orders of a real number x∈(0,1)x∈(0,1) by the partial sums of its ββ-expansions as ββ varies in the parameter space {β∈ℝ:β>1}. More precisely, letting Sn(x,β) be the partial sum of the first n items of the β-expansion of x, we prove that for any real number x∈(0,1), the approximation order of x by Sn(x,β) is β−n for Lebesgue almost all β>1. Moreover, we obtain the size of the set of β>1 for which x can be approximated with a more general order β−φ(n), where φ:ℕ→ℝ+ is a positive function. We also determine the Hausdorff dimension of the set
Cφ(α)={β>1:lim supn→∞ln(x,β)φ(n)=α},0≤α≤∞,
where ln(x,β) is the number of the longest consecutive zeros just after the nth digit in the β-expansion of x.