Unit 7: Career changes
Past perfect tense
Select a unit
- 1 Pop-ups
- 2 Hidden talents
- 3 Can't buy me love
- 4 Travellers' tales
- 5 The colleague from hell
- 6 Jurassic mystery: unpacking the past
- 7 Career changes
- 8 Art
- 9 Project management
- 10 The dog ate my homework!
- 11 The diary of a double agent
- 12 Fashion forward
- 13 Flat pack skyscrapers
- 14 Extreme sports
- 15 Food fads
- 16 Me, my selfie and I
- 17 Endangered animals
- 18 A nip and a tuck: cosmetic surgery
- 19 I'm really sorry...
- 20 Telling stories
- 21 Fakes and phrasals
- 22 Looking to the future
- 23 Becoming familiar with things
- 24 From rags to riches
- 25 Against the odds
- 26 Our future on Mars?
- 27 Where is it illegal to get a fish drunk?
- 28 Dodgy dating
- 29 Annoying advice
- 30 I'll have been studying English for thirty weeks
Session 1
What's the difference between smokeless and smoke-free? These are the two suffixes we're exploring in this session. Join us for 6 Minute Vocabulary and lots of practice activities
Activity 3
More suffixes
Revise -ee, -able, -ible, -ness, and job suffixes
Learning what prefixes and suffixes mean can really help you improve your vocabulary. We revised prefixes in Unit 6 of this course. Now we're going to help you feel more confident with suffixes too.
We've already taught some prefixes in our Lower Intermediate course. For example, in Unit 1 we looked at:
1) ee = creates a noun meaning 'person who receives an action'
- employee, interviewee, trainee
2) able = creates an adjective meaning that the subject can do something OR that something can be done to it
- excitable, loveable, breakable
3) ible = a different spelling of -able
- responsible, visible, terrible
4) ness = creates a noun which describes a quality or state
- happiness, politeness, kindness
In Unit 10 of our Lower Intermediate course, we looked at job suffixes - things you add to words to make them job titles.
5) job titles ending in –er
- presenter, teacher, train driver
6) job titles ending in –or
- actor (some people say actress for female actors), translator
7) job titles ending in –ian
- librarian, politician, optician
8) job titles ending in –ist
- journalist, receptionist, dentist
Read the text and complete the activity
To do
A loveable but excitable dog. A breakable vase. It sounds like it will end badly! Can you fill in the gaps in the story with the correct words, even if you haven't seen them before?
Woof, woof, smash
6 Questions
Even if you don't know all these words, try to use your knowledge of suffixes to fill the gaps
Help
Activity
Even if you don't know all these words, try to use your knowledge of suffixes to fill the gaps
Hint
We want to describe the state of being darkQuestion 1 of 6
Help
Activity
Even if you don't know all these words, try to use your knowledge of suffixes to fill the gaps
Hint
We're looking for a word which means the same as 'staff'Question 2 of 6
Help
Activity
Even if you don't know all these words, try to use your knowledge of suffixes to fill the gaps
Hint
It's so expensive that it is 'without a price'...Question 3 of 6
Help
Activity
Even if you don't know all these words, try to use your knowledge of suffixes to fill the gaps
Hint
Someone who investigates is an... ?Question 4 of 6
Help
Activity
Even if you don't know all these words, try to use your knowledge of suffixes to fill the gaps
Hint
This one has both a prefix and a suffixQuestion 5 of 6
Help
Activity
Even if you don't know all these words, try to use your knowledge of suffixes to fill the gaps
Hint
This one's a job titleQuestion 6 of 6
Excellent! Great job! Bad luck! You scored:
End of Session 1
Well done. We hope learning suffixes has filled you heart with happiness. Or at least made you feel they're not so terrible! See you in Session 2 when we talk about...
Session Vocabulary
Suffixes
-less = 'without' the noun before
- worthless (not having worth), tasteless (having no taste)
-free = 1) 'without' the noun before 2) can mean the noun before is 'not allowed' in an area
- pollution-free (having no pollution), car-free (describes an area where cars are not allowed)
-ee = creates a noun meaning 'person who receives an action'
- employee, interviewee, trainee
-able = creates an adjective meaning that the subject can do something OR that something can be done to it
- excitable, loveable, breakable
-ible = a different spelling of -able
- responsible, visible, terrible
-ness = creates a noun which describes a quality or state
- happiness, politeness, kindness
Job title suffixes
–er (presenter, teacher, train driver)
–or (actor, translator)
–ian (librarian, politician, optician)
–ist (journalist, receptionist, dentist)