When you cook food, you need: main ingredient and seasonings.
Main ingredient renders basic flavor to the food, but seasonings can
significantly alter the flavor. And to figure out why a food has its flavor,
usually you need to separate the food into its constituent parts. Likewise,
for a word to have its meaning, its needs its constituent parts: root,
prefix and suffix. The root determines the basic meaning of the word, but
the prefix significantly alters the meaning, and suffix determines the
part of speech of the word or the intensity of the word. To correctly and
accurately figure out
the true or etymological meaning of the word, usually you have to dissect
the word into its constituents parts, and then combine the meaning of the parts together.
There are six parts on the web pages for Learning English Roots :
Part 1: Most Frequently Used English Prefixes View
Part 2: Most Frequently Used English Suffixes View
Part 3: Most Frequently Used English Words and Their Greek and Latin Root Alternatives View
Part 4: Greek Roots
Part 5: Latin Roots
You will see that the prefixes and suffixes in Part 1 and Part 2 have their frequencies. The frequencies are computed by us. We scrubbed the internet and downloaded an English word dictionary from http://www.gwicks.net/dictionaries.htm. The dictionary contains only a list of 84099 words without any definitions or other information for the words. So we created computer programs to scour the internet for the etymologies and meanings for each of the 84099 words. Then based on this, we created several computer programs to find the frequencies for the prefixes and suffixes in Part 1 and Part 2.
Based on our calculation, it is interesting to see that once you learn the Most Frequently Used English Prefixes in Part 1, and if you learn and understand some English words , then you can instantly expand your vocabulary to up to 2.31 times on average! The only condition for this to happen is that you must know some words or word stems, otherwise the expansion ratio is still zero, because the prefixes can only be correctly used on words or word stems that you truly know. Similary, once you learn the Most Frequently Used English Suffixes, you can instantly expand your vocabulary to up to 2.92 times on average! Coupling the use of prefix with suffix, you can significantly expand your existing vocabulary to up to: 2.31x2.92 = 6.75 times on average!
Based on our research results in Part 1 and Part 2, we present an algorithm for the conversions of parts of speech and negation of English words. We hope that our research results will greatly increase your flexibility of using English words.
The first step to correctly dissect an English word is to correctly spot the prefix and suffix in it. Other useful prefixes and suffixes are given in Part 5 and Part 6.
It is intriguing to see that foreigners are very smart at learning Chinese characters on internet: they know how to intuitively disassemble or dissect Chinese characters into different constituent parts, and then assemble them together to figure out the pronunciation and meaning of the characters. And based on the shape of a simple Chinese character, they can intuitively figure out the meaning for more complicated ones. One examples is:
人 -> 大 -> 天
(meaning: man -> big -> sky)
Once a foreigner learned a simple Chinese character:
虫 (inset, or bug)
they figure out that the following Chinese characters are all bug related, and even figure out the pronunciation of them: 蜘蛛， 蜻蜓
(meaning: spider, dragon fly).
Once they learned:
人 and 木，
(meaning man and wood)
Based on the structure of the character: 休， they figured out that the word means rest.
They are clever and amazing.
One example video that shows how foreigners learn Chinese characters ingeniously: Chinese Characters
If people who are foreign to Chinese characters can learn Chinese in an intelligent and intuitive way, can we Chinese learn English in an equally smart way? The answer should be yes, but the reality is that we all know we encounter some big obstacle. The big obstacle in my humble opinion is the Most Frequently Used English Words in Part 3. The words in the List in Part 3 greatly affect and interfere our thought process of vocabulary building. From day one of learning English, we have been learning every word in the List, no one can escape from learning them, they are deeply entrenched in our brains,
When we learn Chinese characters, we all know that learning simple Chinese characters (or even simple Chinese strokes) greatly helps our understanding and recognizing more complicated Chinese characters. However this is not the case with the words in the List, basically no words in the List provide help in recognizing new and relatively complicated English words.
The reason lies in the history of these words. As shown in the web pages for the words in the List, most of them are originated from Old English. However there is a problem with Old English words - they were spoken by illiterate lower class people, you can see from the List that most of them are very simple, single syllable words, such as pig, tree, eye, chicken, etc. In contrast Latin was spoken and used in churches, academies, courts, and royal palaces. Old English words are not eligible for being a root in constructing new and relatively complicated English words, but Latin word is.
For example, egg is from Old English, it is not eligible for being a root, but oval (or ovum which is Latin, meaning egg) is eligible, several English words are built from oval. Another example is tree, it is from Old English, but not eligible for being a root. However arbor (from Latin, which means tree) is eligible, several English words are constructed out of arbor.
Except the words in the List, not many English words are actually originated from Old English. One interesting note is that Old English is now quite foreign to English people themselves, even to those in academic research fields.
In my humble opinion, if there were no such words in the List, then our life of vocabulary building would be much easier, we could be recognizing new and relatively complicated English words as intelligently as foreigner who are learning new Chinese characters.
Given that the words (from Old English) in the List are not eligible for becoming roots of words, to facilitate the process of expanding your vocabulary, for each of the word in the list, we create computer programs to scour internet to find its alternative Greek and/or Latin roots. Why the alternatives are needed you may ask? The reason is just like learning music: the first music note that you will learn on piano is C note, however, you must also learn that it is a Do note in Solfege, only by learning it as a Do note will your sheet music be singable and enjoyable. Likewise, only by learning the alternatives roots for each word in the List, will you quickly and greatly expand your vocabulary.
We know that generative artificial intelligence (AI) uses simple and frequently used English words to answer questions, to reduce the risk of your own writing or article being classified as AI generated, you may want to consider using the words with alternative Latin or Greek roots in the List. For example use arbor instead of tree, verdant instead of green, and oval instead of egg.
Why English roots are grouped into two categories: Greek Roots and Latin Roots on our web pages in Part 5 and Part 6? The reason lies in the history of English words. See the picture Indo-Enropean Language descendants
We know that:
1) Old English is a descendant of Germanic language.
2) French is a direct descendant of Latin Language (not Germanic).
3) Through the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 by French, English is flooded with French. The flood caused a near extermination of Old English. That is why you see most of English words are from Latin via French.
4) Latin is spoken in Rome, which conquered Greece. Western civilization originated in Greece, and Greece had more advanced science and technology than Rome, so after the conquering, Rome incorporated all science and technology from Greece into their system. Hence the Greek Roots.
Another reason is that a word from Greek has different shape than a word from Latin: for example, most words containing ph and ch are from Greek. Many words that we learned in science and technology fields are from Greek. One example is orthogonal (which means relating to right angless, from Greek), compare to vertical (from Latin).
The pages for Greek Roots and Latin Roots are all about the dissection of words. Why dissection you may ask? The reason is just like cooking food: you combine main ingredients and seasonings to make good food, and you know that the taste of the food is determined by the constituent parts in the food. And to figure out why a food has a flavor, quite often you need to separate the parts. And you know that seasonings have great impact on the flavor of the food. The analogy here is:
root = your main ingredient of food
prefix and suffix = seasonings of food.
true meaning of word = combined meaning of root, prefix and suffix in the word.
Only through dissection of the word, can you correctly and accurately figure out the true (or etymological) meaning of the word.
Because "repetition is the key to learning", we hope that you can follow along and repeat the dissection of every word on the pages yourself.
1) It is our hope that once your learn the Part of Prefixes and Part of Suffixes, given a word that you know, you should be able to freely convert it into a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb or vice versa, and able to apply negation on the word.
2) It is our hope that once you learn Part 3: Most Frequently Used English Words and Their Greek and Latin Root Alternatives, whenever you consider using the word in the list, you can go one step further, use the word that contains the alternative Greek and Latin root instead, this will not only enrich your knowledge but also make yourself erudite.
3) Because Greek root meaning is quite straight forward, by the time you completed the Part of Greek Roots, to give some fun to yourself, you can attempt constructing some "new" words out of the Greek Roots and see whether the word that you construct shows up in a dictionary.
4) By the time you completed the Part of Latin Roots and followed dissecting every example words on the pages here, we believe you have already laid a solid foundation for your vocabulary building, You should be very good at analyzing the structure of an English word, figuring out its true or etymological meaning. And for any new word in the future, it should quickly become a part of your your active vocabulary.
There are six parts on the web pages for Learning English Roots :
Part 1: Most Frequently Used English Prefixes View
Part 2: Most Frequently Used English Suffixes View
Part 3: Most Frequently Used English Words and Their Greek and Latin Root Alternatives View
Part 4: Greek Roots
Part 5: Latin Roots
You will see that the prefixes and suffixes in Part 1 and Part 2 have their frequencies. The frequencies are computed by us. We scrubbed the internet and downloaded an English word dictionary from http://www.gwicks.net/dictionaries.htm. The dictionary contains only a list of 84099 words without any definitions or other information for the words. So we created computer programs to scour the internet for the etymologies and meanings for each of the 84099 words. Then based on this, we created several computer programs to find the frequencies for the prefixes and suffixes in Part 1 and Part 2.
Based on our calculation, it is interesting to see that once you learn the Most Frequently Used English Prefixes in Part 1, and if you learn and understand some English words , then you can instantly expand your vocabulary to up to 2.31 times on average! The only condition for this to happen is that you must know some words or word stems, otherwise the expansion ratio is still zero, because the prefixes can only be correctly used on words or word stems that you truly know. Similary, once you learn the Most Frequently Used English Suffixes, you can instantly expand your vocabulary to up to 2.92 times on average! Coupling the use of prefix with suffix, you can significantly expand your existing vocabulary to up to: 2.31x2.92 = 6.75 times on average!
Based on our research results in Part 1 and Part 2, we present an algorithm for the conversions of parts of speech and negation of English words. We hope that our research results will greatly increase your flexibility of using English words.
The first step to correctly dissect an English word is to correctly spot the prefix and suffix in it. Other useful prefixes and suffixes are given in Part 5 and Part 6.
It is intriguing to see that foreigners are very smart at learning Chinese characters on internet: they know how to intuitively disassemble or dissect Chinese characters into different constituent parts, and then assemble them together to figure out the pronunciation and meaning of the characters. And based on the shape of a simple Chinese character, they can intuitively figure out the meaning for more complicated ones. One examples is:
人 -> 大 -> 天
(meaning: man -> big -> sky)
Once a foreigner learned a simple Chinese character:
虫 (inset, or bug)
they figure out that the following Chinese characters are all bug related, and even figure out the pronunciation of them: 蜘蛛， 蜻蜓
(meaning: spider, dragon fly).
Once they learned:
人 and 木，
(meaning man and wood)
Based on the structure of the character: 休， they figured out that the word means rest.
They are clever and amazing.
One example video that shows how foreigners learn Chinese characters ingeniously: Chinese Characters
If people who are foreign to Chinese characters can learn Chinese in an intelligent and intuitive way, can we Chinese learn English in an equally smart way? The answer should be yes, but the reality is that we all know we encounter some big obstacle. The big obstacle in my humble opinion is the Most Frequently Used English Words in Part 3. The words in the List in Part 3 greatly affect and interfere our thought process of vocabulary building. From day one of learning English, we have been learning every word in the List, no one can escape from learning them, they are deeply entrenched in our brains,
When we learn Chinese characters, we all know that learning simple Chinese characters (or even simple Chinese strokes) greatly helps our understanding and recognizing more complicated Chinese characters. However this is not the case with the words in the List, basically no words in the List provide help in recognizing new and relatively complicated English words.
The reason lies in the history of these words. As shown in the web pages for the words in the List, most of them are originated from Old English. However there is a problem with Old English words - they were spoken by illiterate lower class people, you can see from the List that most of them are very simple, single syllable words, such as pig, tree, eye, chicken, etc. In contrast Latin was spoken and used in churches, academies, courts, and royal palaces. Old English words are not eligible for being a root in constructing new and relatively complicated English words, but Latin word is.
For example, egg is from Old English, it is not eligible for being a root, but oval (or ovum which is Latin, meaning egg) is eligible, several English words are built from oval. Another example is tree, it is from Old English, but not eligible for being a root. However arbor (from Latin, which means tree) is eligible, several English words are constructed out of arbor.
Except the words in the List, not many English words are actually originated from Old English. One interesting note is that Old English is now quite foreign to English people themselves, even to those in academic research fields.
In my humble opinion, if there were no such words in the List, then our life of vocabulary building would be much easier, we could be recognizing new and relatively complicated English words as intelligently as foreigner who are learning new Chinese characters.
Given that the words (from Old English) in the List are not eligible for becoming roots of words, to facilitate the process of expanding your vocabulary, for each of the word in the list, we create computer programs to scour internet to find its alternative Greek and/or Latin roots. Why the alternatives are needed you may ask? The reason is just like learning music: the first music note that you will learn on piano is C note, however, you must also learn that it is a Do note in Solfege, only by learning it as a Do note will your sheet music be singable and enjoyable. Likewise, only by learning the alternatives roots for each word in the List, will you quickly and greatly expand your vocabulary.
We know that generative artificial intelligence (AI) uses simple and frequently used English words to answer questions, to reduce the risk of your own writing or article being classified as AI generated, you may want to consider using the words with alternative Latin or Greek roots in the List. For example use arbor instead of tree, verdant instead of green, and oval instead of egg.
Why English roots are grouped into two categories: Greek Roots and Latin Roots on our web pages in Part 5 and Part 6? The reason lies in the history of English words. See the picture Indo-Enropean Language descendants
We know that:
1) Old English is a descendant of Germanic language.
2) French is a direct descendant of Latin Language (not Germanic).
3) Through the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 by French, English is flooded with French. The flood caused a near extermination of Old English. That is why you see most of English words are from Latin via French.
4) Latin is spoken in Rome, which conquered Greece. Western civilization originated in Greece, and Greece had more advanced science and technology than Rome, so after the conquering, Rome incorporated all science and technology from Greece into their system. Hence the Greek Roots.
Another reason is that a word from Greek has different shape than a word from Latin: for example, most words containing ph and ch are from Greek. Many words that we learned in science and technology fields are from Greek. One example is orthogonal (which means relating to right angless, from Greek), compare to vertical (from Latin).
The pages for Greek Roots and Latin Roots are all about the dissection of words. Why dissection you may ask? The reason is just like cooking food: you combine main ingredients and seasonings to make good food, and you know that the taste of the food is determined by the constituent parts in the food. And to figure out why a food has a flavor, quite often you need to separate the parts. And you know that seasonings have great impact on the flavor of the food. The analogy here is:
root = your main ingredient of food
prefix and suffix = seasonings of food.
true meaning of word = combined meaning of root, prefix and suffix in the word.
Only through dissection of the word, can you correctly and accurately figure out the true (or etymological) meaning of the word.
Because "repetition is the key to learning", we hope that you can follow along and repeat the dissection of every word on the pages yourself.
1) It is our hope that once your learn the Part of Prefixes and Part of Suffixes, given a word that you know, you should be able to freely convert it into a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb or vice versa, and able to apply negation on the word.
2) It is our hope that once you learn Part 3: Most Frequently Used English Words and Their Greek and Latin Root Alternatives, whenever you consider using the word in the list, you can go one step further, use the word that contains the alternative Greek and Latin root instead, this will not only enrich your knowledge but also make yourself erudite.
3) Because Greek root meaning is quite straight forward, by the time you completed the Part of Greek Roots, to give some fun to yourself, you can attempt constructing some "new" words out of the Greek Roots and see whether the word that you construct shows up in a dictionary.
4) By the time you completed the Part of Latin Roots and followed dissecting every example words on the pages here, we believe you have already laid a solid foundation for your vocabulary building, You should be very good at analyzing the structure of an English word, figuring out its true or etymological meaning. And for any new word in the future, it should quickly become a part of your your active vocabulary.