Table 3-1 Prefix
Prefixes Meaning Example
a- not, without, opposite to Apolitical, asexual, atypical, asocial, amoral.
dis- not, the converse of Disobey, discredit, disloyal, disorder, disuse.
un- same in meaning as for dis- Undemocratic, unwillingly, unbiased, unsmiling.
over- excessive added to adjectives verbs and nouns Over-anxious, over-protective, over-reacts, overestimate, overindulgence, overweight.
Table 3-2 Suffix
Suffixes Meaning Example
–eer skilled in, engaged in Profiteer, engineer, auctioneer, mountaineer.
-ism doctrine of, practice of Absenteeism, consumerism, terrorism totalitarianism, ageism, sexism.
-ful amount contained in productive Armful, houseful, mouthful, pocketful.
-ation ,–ition ,–tion ,–sion –ion process or state of or product of, institution produced by Realization, imagination, addition, protection, commission, decision, operation.
This method is most influential and extending in power. It focuses on affix and root and combination association are always used. A short easy word will form a long difficult word. Smart English Wang Maimai English and Spark English and so on are the famous members. According to my analysis based on these famous members I get two major features as follows:
Affix is the most important thing in learning words and no other one will be effective. Most of memorizing methods around us hold this idea and Webster's New World is the best one. Here I cite its brief introduction as the following:
Obviously the method that an easy word can transmit into a long and difficult word is easily to be accepted. So its efficiency will be very high. That is the reason why it's so popular. On contrary to the mechanism memory system this method wields the logical memory system. By the logical memory it's very easy to remember but not a very profound impression is formed so it's also easy to forget. But if we know the law of memory we can follow the law and control the speed of forgetting. Hence this method is really an ideal one and it can be used in practical words acquiring. Admittedly this method is best suitable for those students who learn English very well
As we see this method can enlarge the scope of affix and root by this idea word will become more systematical and easy to be remembered. It's a good method we should master.
3.1.2 Synonymy, Antonym, Hyponymy
Synonymy is one of the characteristic features of the vocabulary of natural languages. English as a highly developed language is known for its copious stock of synonyms. Synonyms can be defined as words different in sound and spelling but most nearly alike or exactly the same in meaning. So when we begin with a new basic word at the same time, we can learn words which have the same meaning. For instance, if we know the basic words like big, great, we should memorize other words further such as large, huge, vast, immense, enormous, tremendous, and gigantic. We also can associate the word hurt with other words like trauma, injure, harm, wound, damage, and destroy.
Here I have to mention one point that is there are no absolute synonyms as for their specific meaning and usage, we had better pay special attention in the process of words memorizing.
Antonym deals with semantic opposition. Antonyms can be defined as words which are opposite in meaning. When we memorize the word optimistic, we can associate it with pessimistic, the same as maximum-minimum, beautiful-ugly, free-enslaved, positive-negative, transparent-opaque rebellious-submissive, uniform-various, savage-civilized.
Just as important as the general relationship of oppositeness between words is the relationship of inclusion which is called hyponymy i.e. the meaning of a more specific word is included in that of another more general word (Lyons 1977.Jackon1988) For instance, tulip and rose are hyponyms of flower; lion and elephant are hyponyms of animal; cabbage, egg-plant, carrot are hyponyms of vegetable. Violin, harp, guitar, trumpet, flute, oboe, drum, bugle, piano, accordion are hyponyms of musical instruments.
3.1.3 Doing Exercise
This is another way of memorizing words. It seems that it needs more time to accumulate English words; however, once you have learnt a word with both of ways, you will remember it firmly, you not only know the meaning of the word, but also know its usage through contexts. Sometimes, you can guess the new word from a certain context.
For example, unlike her gregarious sister, Jane is a shy, unsociable person. From this sentence, we can try to guess the word gregarious instead of using a dictionary, which saves our time and energy. It means that someone is good at socializing with others .Another example, similarly, consumers operating under a given mood state tend to react stimuli in a direction ( ) with that mood. Here are three choices of this blank; A resistant B insistent C consistent. It is no doubt that C is the best answer. Because consistent matches with and resistant matches to, insistent matches on. By doing much exercise, we will learn more words and their usage.
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