Page 180 - DENG401_Advance Communication Skills

Unit 9: Basic Grammar

sub (= under) submarine Notes
super (= higher/improved) supermarket
trans (= across) transatlantic
uni (= one) uniform

under (= not enough) underpaid, underfed
You can also make new words from the words you already know by using different endings. For
example, “The person who employs me has a fast car”. You can make this sentence simpler, by
replacing “the person who employs me” with “my employer”. This gives you “My employer
has a fast car.” In English you can make nouns from verbs (to employ gives employer and
employee). You can also make verbs from nouns or adjectives: government gives to govern,
modern gives to modernize and so on. Learning what endings you can put on words means you
can expand your vocabulary and say what you mean more easily. Here are some common word
endings:

Nouns
-er /- or: a person who does something adviser / advisor, teacher, learner
-ian optician, mathematician
-ment: result of action improvement, advancement
-ism: name of system or belief realism, optimism.
-ist: the person who believes in the system realist, optimist

-ion confusion, apparition
-ness happiness
-ship leadership
-ence / ance permanence, appearance
-acy lunacy

-age marriage
-ity annuity
-y photography
-cy fluency
Verbs
-ify falsify, modify
-ise modernise

Adjectives
-ic idiotic, periodic
-ful awful, wonderful
-able/ible comfortable, terrible
-proof/resistant waterproof, childproof, fireproof

-free alcohol free beer, nuclear free zone
-less: without hopeless, childless

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