TRANSCRIPT EPISODE 24: WORD FORMATION Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS Preparation I'm Margot Politis A useful skill in all aspects of English is knowing how new words are formed with prefixes and suffixes, and how adding those prefixes and suffixes changes the meanings of words First, let's watch this story about recycling wooden barrels - or kegs - for storing wine Listen carefully for words that have a prefix, or a suffix – or both: Wine involves a great deal of recycling Not recycling the wine itself, but the barrels and the kegs that wine is stored in The barrel's very important The wood it's made from imparts flavour and texture and character to the wine But after a while the wood loses those qualities and the barrel has to be taken apart, the wood refurbished, the barrel put back together From vineyards around Australia, tired old barrels arrive to be renewed Glenn is a cooper, practising an ancient craft with its own language Well, when they come in, we just start taking the ends out of the barrels, loosening the hoops on one end, take the head out, retighten it, turn the barrel over and the same thing so that we've opened both ends of the barrel And we use a grinder with a rotary planer head on it to shave, say, four or five mill out of the inside of that barrel so that we expose all the fresh oak flavours The barrel is dismantled You get different-width staves You get wider ones, you get narrower ones But you might say, "Why don't they make a square barrel?" Well, they have, and it didn't work So coopering lives on A word that cannot be broken down into parts is called the root, or base word A prefix may be added to the beginning of a word, changing the meaning And a suffix may be added to the end of a word Let's look at one example From vineyards around Australia, tired old barrels arrive to be renewed Let's look at the word 'renewed' The base, or root word is 'new', the opposite of old It's an adjective A prefix 're' can be added before the word The word is now 'renew' Adding this prefix not only changes the meaning, it changes the function of the word 'Renew' is a verb The prefix 're' means 'again' So the new word is a verb that means 'to make new again' The suffix 'ed' has a grammatical function you probably know – it changes the tense of the verb to simple past tense So the meaning of 'renewed' is 'made new again' Tired old barrels arrive to be made new again There are some other examples of the prefix 're' in that story Listen: Wine involves a great deal of recycling Not recycling the wine itself, but the barrels and the kegs that wine is stored in But after a while the wood loses those qualities and the barrel has to be taken apart, the wood refurbished, the barrel put back together Page of Well, when they come in, we just start taking the ends out of the barrels, loosening the hoops on one end, take the head out, retighten it, turn the barrel over and the same thing so that we've opened both ends of the barrel The three words were: recycled, refurbished and retighten Recycled means to treat something so that it can be used again Refurbished means restored – made better, and to retighten, is simply to tighten again There is another suffix that can be added to 'refurbish' – 'ment' This suffix carries the meaning of 'an action, process or result of', so refurbishment is the process of refurbishing something There are many words in English that use this suffix: development; government; employment; entertainment; to name just a few Now, we've heard a bit about the process of refurbishing and recycling wine barrels – but who does this work? What is that person called? From vineyards around Australia, tired old barrels arrive to be renewed Glenn is a cooper, practising an ancient craft with its own language That person is called a 'cooper' A cooper is someone who makes barrels The 'er' suffix – carries the meaning 'the person who does that thing' – for example: A teacher teaches A driver drives A footballer plays football And the 'er' suffix isn't only used for people – it can be used for things Listen: Well, when they come in, we just start taking the ends out of the barrels, loosening the hoops on one end, take the head out, retighten it, turn the barrel over and the same thing so that we've opened both ends of the barrel And we use a grinder with a rotary planer head on it to shave, say, four or five mill out of the inside of that barrel so that we expose all the fresh oak flavours A grinder is a machine that grinds A planer is a machine, or blade that planes – or makes wood smooth The 'er' suffix has another function too Listen: The barrel is dismantled You get different-width staves You get wider ones, you get narrower ones You get wider ones The 'er' suffix here is added to an adjective to make a comparative adjective We looked before at the word 'retighten', which means 'to tighten again' Let's look at the word 'tighten' The root word is tight – an adjective When we add the 'en' suffix, it becomes a verb – to make tight What is the opposite? Well, when they come in, we just start taking the ends out of the barrels, loosening the hoops on one end, take the head out, retighten it, turn the barrel over and the same thing so that we've opened both ends of the barrel Page of The opposite of 'tighten' is 'loosen' Again, the 'en' suffix is used to make the verb – 'loosen' and 'loosening' Here's another example of an 'ing' suffix: The barrel is dismantled You get different-width staves You get wider ones, you get narrower ones But you might say, "Why don't they make a square barrel?" Well, they have, and it didn't work So coopering lives on Coopering lives on We've already seen that a cooper is someone who makes barrels So coopering is the work of making barrels Notice here that the word 'coopering' in the sentence: 'Coopering lives on' is the subject of the verb 'lives' This is an example of a gerund – where a verb is acting as a noun in a sentence Finally, notice that when describing a process we often use passive voice verbs to describe the actions in the process Listen for the verbs: The barrel's very important The wood it's made from imparts flavour and texture and character to the wine But after a while the wood loses those qualities and the barrel has to be taken apart, the wood refurbished, the barrel put back together The barrel has to be taken apart Notice that in a passive construction the agent, or person who does the action, the taking apart, is not mentioned – so the object – the barrel is acted on by the verb There are two other examples in this description: the wood refurbished, the barrel put back together Because this is a list of actions in a description of the process, the speaker leaves out 'has to be', which applies to all of the steps The barrel's very important The wood it's made from imparts flavour and texture and character to the wine But after a while the wood loses those qualities and the barrel has to be taken apart, the wood refurbished, the barrel put back together That's all for now Remember to visit our website where you can watch this episode again, as well as any other episode of Study English, IELTS Preparation (The address is: australianetwork.com/studyenglish) I'll see you next time Page of