Learning English

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

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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?

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...