Grow Vocabulary with 1 Simple Trick: Advanced Vocabulary Lesson

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

Let's talk about expanding your vocabulary.

Want to improve your vocabulary?

You're not alone.

Whether you have a big English exam coming up like the IELTS or TOEFL, or maybe you want

to just find the right word the next time you have an English conversation, this lesson's

for you.

I have some good news today.

I have one specific tip for you that will help you take your base vocabulary and expand

it a lot.

That is to learn affixes.

What in the world is an affix?

Well, it's a few letters that you add at the beginning of a word or a few letters that

you add at the end of the word.

At the beginning, like Un- is a prefix, unhappy.

At the end of a word, like -ful is a suffix, graceful.

When you learn these affixes, the prefixes and suffixes, you'll really recognize these

in a lot of different situations and you'll know, "Oh, because I know what that prefix

means, I know what this full new word means."

Throughout this lesson you might wonder, "Why, Vanessa, do we say unhappy and not dishappy?

Because un and dis have a similar meaning?"

Well, as my grandma would say, "Lord knows."

So here the key is really repetition, repetition and maybe a little quiz.

At the end of this lesson, I'm going to give you a little quiz, so make sure you take notes

about the affixes, which are prefixes or suffixes that you're not familiar with.

All right, let's go.

Let's get started with prefixes, which you'll find at the beginning of a word.

The first one is Anti-, against.

Anticlimactic, anti-inflammatory, antiwar.

Do you get the feeling that if someone said, "I'm antiwar, that they love war?"

Nope, that means they are against war.

I'm antiwar.

Or if something is an anti-inflammatory, you often find this in medicine, it means that

something is inflamed.

Maybe here it's inflamed.

You need to take an anti-inflammatory and it will help your inflammation go down.

De- opposite.

What is the opposite of value?

Devalue.

What's the opposite of construction?

Destruction.

Dis- not or the opposite of something.

Discover.

Disagree.

Disproportionate.

When you cover something, you are hiding it.

You're not looking at it, but when you discover something, you're opening it up.

It is opposite of covering, discovering.

What about disagree?

When you agree with someone, the opposite is disagree.

En- Em- cause to, enact, enable, empower, embrace.

Do you notice in these words the root word, the root word is what's left after the prefix.

So here we have enable.

The root word is able.

So we can take that part that we know and then think enable.

Well if En- means because to do something we can say that to able and then enable means

that you're helping someone be able to do something.

You're causing something to be able to happen.

Great.

Fore-, before, front of, foreshadow, forearm, forecast.

What is your forearm?

It's right here.

This is in front of your arm, in front of your body.

What about forecast?

Well, this is when the weatherman says tomorrow it's going to be rainy.

He is making a guess before something happens.

Here's the forecast.

In-, Im-, In-, this one's pretty self-explanatory.

Income, impulse.

Your income is the amount of money that you make.

It is coming into your life, income.

In-, Im-, Il-, Ir-, not.

Do you notice that those first two are the same that we just talked about?

So you need to make sure that you know these words by heart.

Let's talk about some examples.

Indirect, injustice, immoral, illiterate, irreverent, irresponsible.

Look at that root word and then when we add this prefix, it changes it to be the opposite

meaning.

It means irresponsible, means not responsible.

So it changes the root word responsible to mean the opposite.

We can do that with all the other ones as well.

Injustice, it is not justice.

It's the opposite, injustice.

Inter-, between, among.

Interrupt, interact.

When you interact with other people, you're having a conversation with multiple people.

You are having a conversation among other people.

Mid-, middle, midway, mid-sentence.

Maybe you interrupted someone mid-sentence.

You stop them in the middle of that sentence, mid-sentence.

You'll see here that sometimes there's a hyphen after the prefix, mid-sentence.

Sometimes hyphens are required an English and sometimes you have a choice.

If you want to stick the word together or if you want to put a hyphen.

Some of these are optional, so make sure that you check those out.

Mis-, wrongly, misspell, misstep, misdemeanor.

If you spell something wrong, you misspell the word.

Non-, not, nonviolent, nonsense.

If something is completely confusing, it doesn't make any sense, it is nonsense.

Over-, over, too much, overeat.

Overlook.

Did you eat too much during the holidays?

Maybe you overate.

Did you overeat?

Pre-, before, preview, prefix.

We often see this for movies when there's a new movie trailer available for a movie

that's coming soon.

You might say, I want to preview the movie.

Re-, again, this one is super common.

Rewrite, research, review, refresh, refurbish.

Look at the root word for all of these.

Review.

View is our root word and what are we doing?

We're viewing it again, review.

Semi- or you might hear people say semi.

Half, partly not fully.

Semi-final.

Semi-formal.

You especially here this in sports, it's the semi-final.

It's not the final round but it's the semi-final.

Sub-, under, subway, submarine.

Super- above, beyond.

He's superhuman.

Superstar.

Trans-, across or crossing a boundary.

Transmit, transport.

You're carrying something across some kind of boundary or across the USS.

You're transporting some goods.

Un-, not, opposite of.

Unhealthy, unfriendly, unusual.

Is something not normal?

It's not usual.

It is unusual.

It's the opposite of usual.

Under-, under or too little.

Underestimate, under-reported.

Do you feel like there's something in your country that reporters are not talking about?

It is under-reported.

How did you enjoy those prefixes?

Did you realize how words are put together?

Maybe you recognized some words that you already knew and maybe you realize, "Oh, I can create

new words in this way."

I hope so.

Let's go onto some suffixes.

You're going to notice that some of these letters that we add at the end of these root

words, they make the word into a different part of speech.

Maybe they make it into a verb.

Maybe they make it into an adjective or an adverb, or maybe they make it into a noun.

So it's a great way to take a root word that you already know and then change it into different

forms so that you can fit it into different parts of the sentence.

All right, let's get started.

-able, -ible.

Is, can be affordable, comfortable, sensible.

Does something make sense?

It is sensible.

-al, -ial.

Having characteristics of.

Universal, facial.

Note the pronunciation here, it's in my throat.

Universal.

It is a universal fact that the sky is blue when it's sunny.

I'm pretty sure.

-ed for past tense verbs or it can be used to make adjectives.

The door opened or the opened door.

The first one is a past tense verb, opened and the second one is an adjective.

The opened door.

It's describing the door.

-en, made of golden, wooden.

Notice here the pronunciation.

-en, golden, it's made of gold, golden.

-er, -or.

A person connected with something, usually a job.

Teacher, worker, professor, creator.

If you'd like to know how to pronounce over 100 jobs, hopefully including yours, you can

click on my video up here.

-er, more, taller, stronger, faster, smarter.

We use this in comparisons.

He is taller than me.

Taller.

-est, the most tallest, strongest, smartest.

We use this in comparisons of three or more things.

So when you're talking about your family, if there are five people in your family, you

might say, my dad is the tallest member in our family.

Make sure that you pronounce this correctly.

Even though it's est, it sounds like a short I tallest, tallest.

-ful, full of, hurtful, helpful, careful, graceful.

If you are helpful, you are full of helping someone.

You help a lot.

-ic, having characteristics of something.

Poetic, linguistic.

You can see that this is a little bit more literary here, a little bit more for written

English.

If something is like poetry, it is poetic.

-ing, to create different verb tenses.

Sleeping, running, crying.

Why are you sleeping at 11:00 AM?

It's time to go to work.

-ion, -tion, -ation, occasion, motion relation, attraction.

They have a strong attraction.

This is the act of being attracted to each other.

-ity, -ty, the state of something.

Activity, society, infinity.

Note the pronunciation here because in American English that T is going to often sound like

a D. ActiviDy, because we have a T surrounded by two vowel sounds.

Why is not technically a vowel, but it often sounds like one.

So we're going to say activiDy, socieDy, infiniDy.

For more tips about American English pronunciation, you can watch my video up here.

-ive, -ative, -itive.

This is going to create an adjective form of a word.

Active, formative, sensitive.

We have a root word act, and when we say active, it creates it into an adjective.

He is an active boy.

Active is describing boy.

So we've got an adjective.

-less, without.

Hopeless, fearless, helpless, loveless.

So let's take the root word, fear and imagine what is without fear?

Well, it's someone who's fearless.

They'll skydive.

They'll jump off of cliffs into the water.

They are fearless.

Without fear.

-ly, how something is.

This is almost always an adverb.

Lovely.

It's lovely.

Slowly, go slowly, unfortunately.

Here we have something that is unfortunate and we're going to make it into an adverb

and say, unfortunately he can't make it today.

He's busy.

Maybe he's sick.

Unfortunately he can't come to the meeting.

-ment, state of being an act of something.

Contentment, enjoyment.

Notice the pronunciation here we have an E but again it sounds like a short I. Enjoyment,

contentment.

Kind of sounds like a mint, maybe a peppermint that you put in your mouth, but really it's

spelled with an E. Contentment.

-ness, a state of or a condition of something.

Openness.

It's a state of being open.

Kindness, happiness.

She showed a lot of happiness when she opened the present.

-ous, -eous, -ious.

Having qualities of something.

Joyous.

She has qualities of joy.

Courageous.

She is courageous.

Gracious.

She was very gracious even though I broke her favorite mug, she was kind to me and didn't

get angry.

She was gracious.

-s, -es, more than one.

We use this to make plural.

Nouns, trains, computers, boxes.

We often pronounce es as a short I like we've mentioned before.

Boxes, foxes.

-y, characterized by something.

Happy, gloomy, sappy.

What does the word gloom mean?

It's another way to say sad.

Maybe something is depressing.

Maybe it's a really rainy and cloudy day outside.

It is a gloomy day.

It's dark.

So here we're going to add a Y on the end to say gloomy.

How did you do with those suffixes?

Did you already know some of those?

I bet you did.

I hope that this will help to expand your vocabulary because now it's time for a little

quiz.

I'm going to share a story with you and I want you to choose the best word to fill in

the blank during the little pause.

You just heard each of these words in the lesson, can you remember them?

Let's listen to the story.

Dan and I disagreed, non-agreed about something last week.

Dan and I disagreed about something last week.

He wanted me to re-brace, embrace, change, but I wasn't so sure.

He wanted me to embrace change, but I wasn't so sure.

We were thinking about preferbishing, refurbishing an old rocking chair for my grandma.

We were thinking about refurbishing an old chair for my grandma.

I think Dan underestimated, semi-estimated it's personal value to me.

I think Dan underestimated it's personal value to me.

Plus, I wondered, will this work be affordable, afforded?

Plus I wondered, will this work be affordable?

I want to make sure that the workers are careless, careful with this antique chair.

I want to make sure the workers are careful with this antique chair.

We talked to the restoration shop and they seemed sensitive, sensitivity to my concerns.

We talked to the restoration shop and they seemed sensitive to my concerns.

So because of their kindest, kindness I decided to use their services.

So because of their professional kindness I decided to use their services.

How did you do?

Let's read the full story one more time so that you can see it with all of the correct

words.

Dan and I disagreed about something last week.

He wanted me to embrace change, but I wasn't so sure.

We were thinking about refurbishing and old rocking chair for my grandma.

I think Dan underestimated it's personal value to me.

Plus I wondered, will this work be affordable?

I want to make sure the workers are careful with this antique chair.

We talked to the restoration shop and they seemed sensitive to my concerns.

So because of their professional kindness, I decided to use their service.

How did you enjoy this vocabulary expanding lesson?

I hope you enjoyed it.

Now I have a challenge for you.

In the comments, I want you to try to create a sentence using some of these prefixes and

suffixes.

Can you do it?

Do make sure to check out other students' comments as well so that you can practice

and see other words.

Thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new

lesson here on my YouTube channel.

Bye.

The next step is to download my free E-book, Five Steps To Becoming A Confident English

Speaker.

You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.

Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons.

Thanks so much.

Bye.