昔日文章

Knowing the role of word roots in English through vocabulary formation 通過例子去認識詞根在英文造詞的角色 S : Sophia T: Thomas   T: Hello Sophia! So nice to bump into you here in the canteen. What are you doing here? S: Hi Thomas, I am considering taking up physiotherapy after graduating from DSE, or if I should study philosophy ?   T: Your name should guide you somewhat. In that case, you may consider going for philosophy, rather than physiotherapy. S: Why? What’s philosophy got to do with me?   T: The word philosophy in English is made up of two Greek roots – philo and sophia, which respectively mean love and wisdom. So, combining the two roots you’ll have              philosophia, that is philosophy in English, where the -y is a suffix and indicates a state or a condition, of being in love with wisdom! S: So, what is a root?   T: Roots are the basic part of any English word, and English has got plenty of roots from different languages, but mostly from Latin and Greek.     By the way, you know, getting to know quite a few such roots will take you a long way towards expanding your English vocab.   T: 好Sophia！很高興在食堂碰到你。你在這裡做甚麼？ S: 嗨Thomas，我正在考慮中六畢業之後修讀物理治療，還是哲學﹖   T: 你的名字可以給妳一些指引。在這情況下，您可以考慮選擇哲學，而不是物理治療。 S: 為甚麼？哲學跟我有甚麼關係？   T: 英語中哲學一詞由兩個希臘詞根（Greek roots）組成——philo和Sophia，意思是愛和智慧。所以，結合這兩個詞根，你就會得到 philosophia，即英語中的philosophy，其中-y是一個後綴（suffix），表示一種狀態或條件，即愛上智慧！ S: 甚麼是詞根？   T: 詞根是任何英語單詞的基本部分， 英語有很多來自不同語言的詞根， 但主要來自拉丁語和希臘語。順帶一提，你要知道，多了解這些詞根會對你在擴展英語詞彙方面大有幫助。