Prefixes and Suffixes
Prefixes
1 Matching
Make adjectives by matching the suffixes and stems
where possible. Then find a noun for each from the list on
the right.
Prefixes Stems Nouns
un cheque meat
mis envelope phone
dis cooked expressio card
n sports
facilities
re dated factory staff
pre paid gift ticket
voucher
post used leave word
under letter work
over loan worker
meal
2 Gap-fill and discussion
Complete each question with a suitable prefix. Then choose five questions at random to ask your
partner.
1. Which professions in your country are_______paid?
Do you think there should be limits on how much people earn?
2. What sorts of food should you never eat_________cooked?
Have you ever had food poisoning from eating _ _ cooked food?
3. Have you ever done____________paid work for charity?
4. Are there any_______________used buildings near to your home or workplace?
5. Do you have a mobile account or do you use a_______paid card?
6. Which words or expressions in your language do you think are___used?
7. Which government services are______________used in your country?
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8. Have you ever written a(n)_____________dated cheque?
9. What kind of workers in your country are_________paid? Do they ever go on strike?
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Prefixes and Suffixes
Suffixes
1 Table completion
Make as many words as you can, adding prefixes to the left and suffixes to the right of the stems
below.
stem adjectives nouns verbs
help Helpful, helpless, helping help help
kind Kindness, kindly(adverb) Kind, kindness
literate illiterate literacy literalize
loyal Loyal loyalty loyalize
mature Mature/immature Matureness/maturity mature
popular
rely
sense
success
thought
understand
use
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Suffixes
2 Practice - sentence completion 5. The school will not tolerate this kind of
___________________ behavior.
Use the correct forms of words in the table to
complete the sentences. 6. I think her anger is quite
___________________ - I would be
angry myself in that situation.
help loyal rely
7. I’ve just heard the weather forecast and
kind mature sense I don’t think it would be
__________________ to go ahead
literate popular success with the barbecue.
8. All primary schools teach basic
thought understand use ___________________.
9. The new sales tax was scrapped due to its
1. The staff in the shop were very____________________________________________________.
___________________ and I soon
found what I wanted. 10.The government has had some
___________________ in reducing
2. We have a customer inflation, which has fallen to 3%.
___________________ programme.
You get a 10 per cent discount for every 11.This app is completely
$100 you spend. ___________________! I can’t get it to
work at all.
3. There’s a train service to the city centre
but it’s not very_______________________as 12.I think it was rather
there are often delays. ___________________ of her to
announce the party just after the
4. I thanked her for her funeral.
___________________in helping out
when my mother was ill.
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Suffixes
3 Practice - brainstorming
Try to find two beginnings for each of the suffixes below. What parts of speech are they?
-ion -less -ment -ful
-ness -able -ist -ical
-er -ous -cy -ance/ence
-(i)ty -ate -al -ive
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