Reading: Vocabulary in Context: B1 Lesson 3: Recognizing Word Families

Reading: Vocabulary in Context

B1 Lesson 3: Recognizing Word Families

What you will learn: By the end of this lesson, you will be able to recognize words from the same family and understand how prefixes and suffixes change a word's meaning and type.

Before You Read 🧠

Key Vocabulary

Understanding these four ideas is the key to this lesson.

Word Family

A group of words with the same base or root word.

Base Word

The main part of a word that has the core meaning.

Prefix

A part added to the beginning of a word (e.g., un-happy).

Suffix

A part added to the end of a word (e.g., happi-ness).

Exploring Word Families

Word families are built by adding prefixes and suffixes to a base word. Let's look at two common examples.

Word Family: 'happy'

• happy (adjective)
  I am happy to live in Kampot.
• unhappy (adjective)
  The rainy weather makes me feel unhappy.
• happiness (noun)
  He found great happiness living by the sea.
• happily (adverb)
  The children played happily on the beach.

Word Family: 'use'

• use (verb)
  Can I use your phone?
• useful (adjective)
  A moto is very useful for getting around town.
• useless (adjective)
  A broken pen is useless.
• user (noun)
  Are you a regular Facebook user?

Practice What You Learned 🎯

Quiz: Choose the Best Word

Use your knowledge of word families to complete the sentences.

1. Knowing English is a very _______ skill for getting a good job in the tourism industry.

• A. useless
• B. user
• C. useful

→ Answer: C. useful. The sentence needs an adjective to describe the skill.

2. The suffix '-less' in the word 'useless' means:

• A. full of
• B. a person who
• C. without

→ Answer: C. without. 'Useless' means 'without a use'.

Key Vocabulary Reference

• Word Family (Noun) | គ្រួសារពាក្យ
  A group of words that share the same base or root word (e.g., happy, happiness).
• Base Word (Noun) | ពាក្យដើម
  The main part of a word that contains the core meaning.
• Prefix (Noun) | បុព្វបទ
  Letters added to the beginning of a base word to change its meaning (e.g., un-happy).
• Suffix (Noun) | បច្ច័យ
  Letters added to the end of a base word, often changing its part of speech (e.g., happi-ness).

Your Reading Mission ⭐

Explore a Word Family!

The base word is 'help' (verb).

1. The suffix -ful means "full of". What do you think the adjective `helpful` means? Write one sentence using `helpful`.
2. The suffix -less means "without". What do you think the adjective `helpless` means? Write one sentence using `helpless`.