前綴與後綴的用法及意義

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'.

名詞、動詞、形容詞和副詞都傾向於使用不同的後綴，因此這使得記憶詞彙更容易一些！前綴和後綴統稱爲“詞綴”。

Prefixes

前綴

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'.

前綴由一個字母或一組字母組成，附在單詞的開頭，利於表明或修飾詞義。舉一個簡單的例子，“prefix”本身！它以前綴pre-開頭，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!

理解不同前綴的含義是很重要的，因爲這有助於理解你所學的任何新詞彙的含義。但是，要十分注意的是，前綴有時可能有不止只有一個意思！

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

一個例子就是“im-”，意爲“否”或者“進入”

Suffixes

後綴

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.

後綴由字母或一組字母組成，通常是連到一個單詞的結尾，並從語法上改變該詞的作用。

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.

根據不同詞性，名詞、動詞、形容詞或副詞需要不同的後綴。例如，動詞read可以通過添加後綴-er變爲名詞reader，也可以通過添加後綴-able變爲形容詞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. 

理解後綴的含義與理解前綴的含義同樣重要，因爲同樣有助於我們推斷所學新單詞的含義。

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，詞綴可以極大地改變詞語的含義。瞭解各種前綴和後綴及其含義可以幫助理解單詞的用法，以及如何拼寫。

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.

雖然這些字母組（詞綴）很重要，有助於形成單詞，但它們不是自成的單詞，不能獨自出現在句子中。

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 .

如果獨立書寫或印刷詞綴，那麼應該有一個連字符在其之前或之後，表明該詞綴是被連接到其他字母組成單詞的。

Combining forms

組合形式

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!

當學習不同類型的前綴時，記住並不是每個包含這些組合的單詞都是前綴。有時單詞有“組合形式”，雖然看起來很像前綴，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，前綴是出現在單詞開頭的一個字母或一組字母，但卻可以從詞幹中去掉，即使詞義發生變化，該詞仍然是一個完整的詞彙。

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-意爲“not”或“without”，用在諸如“nonsense（廢話）”之類的詞中。“sense”這個詞可以和前綴non-分開，即使它的意思不同，它仍然是一個單詞。

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.

組合形式類似於前綴，有時被稱爲“變色龍前綴”，因爲它們像前綴一樣出現在單詞的開頭，但組合形式是單詞的固有形式，是單詞的一部分，不能被刪除。

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

被稱爲“變色龍”的原因在於其改變了拼寫和自然形式來適應其添加到的詞幹！

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

因此，組合形式像是充當前綴，但卻不同，因爲其不能將其餘的字母分開形成一個獨立的單詞。