Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs all tend to use different suffixes, so this makes it a little easier to remember! Collectively, prefixes and suffixes are known as ‘affixes’.

名词、动词、形容词和副词都倾向于使用不同的后缀，因此这使得记忆词汇更容易一些！前缀和后缀统称为“词缀”。

Prefixes

前缀

A prefix is a letter or a group of letters that attaches to the beginning of a word and helps to indicate or modify its meaning. An easy example would be the word ‘prefix’ itself! It begins with the prefix pre-, which means ‘before’.

前缀由一个字母或一组字母组成，附在单词的开头，利于表明或修饰词义。举一个简单的例子，“prefix”本身！它以前缀pre-开头，意思是“before（之前）”。

It is quite important to understand what different prefixes mean as they can help to understand the meanings of any new vocabulary that you learn. However, you do need to be careful, as sometimes a prefix can have more than one meaning!

理解不同前缀的含义是很重要的，因为这有助于理解你所学的任何新词汇的含义。但是，要十分注意的是，前缀有时可能有不止只有一个意思！

An example would be im-, this can mean ‘not’ or ‘into’.

一个例子就是“im-”，意为“否”或者“进入”

Suffixes

后缀

A suffix is a letter or a group of letters that is usually attached to the end of a word to form a new word, as well as alter the way it functions grammatically.

后缀由字母或一组字母组成，通常是连到一个单词的结尾，并从语法上改变该词的作用。

Depending on whether it is a noun, verb, adjective or adverb, a different suffix would be required. For example, the verb read can be altered to become the noun reader by adding the suffix ­-er. The same verb can also be turned into the adjective readable by adding the suffix –able.

根据不同词性，名词、动词、形容词或副词需要不同的后缀。例如，动词read可以通过添加后缀-er变为名词reader，也可以通过添加后缀-able变为形容词readable。

It is just as important to understand the definitions of suffixes as prefixes, because they too help us to deduce the meanings of any new words that we learn.

理解后缀的含义与理解前缀的含义同样重要，因为同样有助于我们推断所学新单词的含义。

So as you can see, affixes can dramatically change the definitions of words. Knowing the various prefixes and suffixes along with their meanings can really help you to understand how words are used, and also how they should be spelt.

因此，正如你所看到的，词缀可以极大地改变词语的含义。了解各种前缀和后缀及其含义可以帮助理解单词的用法，以及如何拼写。

Although these groups of letters (affixes) are important and assist with forming words, they are not words in their own right and cannot stand alone in a sentence.

虽然这些字母组（词缀）很重要，有助于形成单词，但它们不是自成的单词，不能独自出现在句子中。

If they are printed or written alone, then they should have a hyphen before or after them to demonstrate that they are to be attached to other letters to form words .

如果独立书写或印刷词缀，那么应该有一个连字符在其之前或之后，表明该词缀是被连接到其他字母组成单词的。

Combining forms

组合形式

When you are learning the different types of prefixes, it is important to remember that not every word containing these combinations is a prefix. Sometimes words have ‘combining forms’, which look very similar to prefixes but work differently!

当学习不同类型的前缀时，记住并不是每个包含这些组合的单词都是前缀。有时单词有“组合形式”，虽然看起来很像前缀，但作用不同！

As you know, a prefix is a letter or a group of letters that appears at the beginning of words, but it can also be removed from the base word, and the word would still be a word without it, even if the meaning changes.

如你所知，前缀是出现在单词开头的一个字母或一组字母，但却可以从词干中去掉，即使词义发生变化，该词仍然是一个完整的词汇。

For example, non- means ‘not’ or ‘without’, this is used in words such as ‘nonsense’. The word ‘sense’ can be separated from the prefix and it would still be a word on its own, even if the meaning is different.

例如，non-意为“not”或“without”，用在诸如“nonsense（废话）”之类的词中。“sense”这个词可以和前缀non-分开，即使它的意思不同，它仍然是一个单词。

Combining forms are similar to prefixes, and are sometimes known as ‘chameleon prefixes’, because they act like them and appear at the beginning of words like them, BUT the combining form is intrinsic to the word, meaning it is a part of the word and cannot be removed.

组合形式类似于前缀，有时被称为“变色龙前缀”，因为它们像前缀一样出现在单词的开头，但组合形式是单词的固有形式，是单词的一部分，不能被删除。

They are called ‘chameleons’, because they change their spelling and physical form to suit the word they are attached to!

被称为“变色龙”的原因在于其改变了拼写和自然形式来适应其添加到的词干！

So, combining forms act as but are different, because the remaining letters cannot be separated to form an independent word.

因此，组合形式像是充当前缀，但却不同，因为其不能将其余的字母分开形成一个独立的单词。

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