Skills for Learning New Words

1.      Context Clues

On occasion you find words that you don’t know their meaning, and you don’t have a dictionary or you can’t use it. Well, another way to find out the meaning of unfamiliar words is looking for clues that the author left behind – context clues.

Context clues are words, phrases, and sentences around the unfamiliar word that gives you clues to figure out the meaning of the unknown word. Different kinds of context clues are: definition or synonyms, concrete examples, contrast clues, description clues, words or phrases that modify, conjunctions showing relationship, and unstated or implied meaning.

Example:  Sammy was very stingy with the waitress. He didn’t give her a tip.

The word stingy means unwilling to spend or give. We can determine this meaning because the second sentence gives more information about Sammy’s action of not giving the waitress a tip.

A clue for synonyms or definition is that will be followed by a comma or a dash. It also might include words such as or, is called, that is, and in other words. This kind of clue is mostly found in textbook, especially science, history and math. The author also gives examples to clarify a concept. It helps you determine the meaning of the new word. Signal words that can alert you that an example will follow are: such as, including, for instance, to illustrate, are example of, and for example. In other occasions the writer gives opposite meaning, describes the words, show relationships, implied the meaning with prior knowledge, or uses modifiers such as adjectives, adverbs, phrases or clauses to clarify the meaning of the unfamiliar word.

2.      Understanding roots, prefixes, and suffixes

Another method to learn the meaning of new words is roots, prefixes, and suffixes. A root word is the basic element of a word that remains after eliminating the affixes, or inflectional changes. The root contains the basic meaning, or definition of a word. A prefixes is a letter or group of letter that appears at the beginning of a word and changes the word’s meaning. A suffix is a letter or group of letters added to the end of a word. It changes the words meaning and can change the part of speech or grammatical function of the original word. If you know the meaning of the root word and prefix or suffix you can then determine the meaning of the new word.

Example:

precook – pre is a prefix, and means before. Then the meaning is cook before.

novelist – ist is a suffix, and means a person who did something. Then the meaning is a   person who wrote the novel.

 

3.      Multiple-meaning words

In English we have words that can have multiple meanings, this are words that have more than one meaning. The context of the sentences helps you determine which is the correct meaning of the word.

Example:                     fly

            Definition:  1. to sail through the air; 2. an insect that buzzes.

            Sentence: The airplanes fly straight toward to Panama.

In this sentence, fly is referring the definition number 1, to sail through then air. The airplane is a thing sailing through the air, and is not an insect.

They are some words that are pronounce the same way, but are spelled differently and have different meaning. We also have words that are spelled and pronounced the same way, but with different meaning. For example, the homophones, homographs and homonymous. These types of words are very common on our American Standard English. To determine the correct word and meaning to use in each sentences, you need to understand the context of the sentences or paragraph appropriately.