It is highly common to come across words that you don’t understand when reading a text, be it in your daily lives or in reading comprehension text passages. 

The typical solution that people often tell us would be to ‘read more, write more’ and naturally you would be able to understand what this complex vocabulary word means and how to use them. 

While there may be some element of truth to this well-meaning advice, the assumption is that students, when left to their own devices, will somehow be able to figure it out on their own. However, more often than not, students tend to give up reading an entire text (unless it is for exam purposes) when they come across too many complex vocabulary words and are too lazy to look them up from a dictionary or do a quick google search.

But what many students do not realise is that there are actually ways to make an educated guess about what the complex vocabulary word means. 

Here are THREE ways to do so.

TIP NUMBER ONE

1. Look at the root word, prefix or suffix

• Root word refers to the base form of a word that cannot be broken down any further.
• Prefix refers to a letter or word (group of letters) added before a word to give it a different meaning.
• Suffix refers to a letter or word (group of letters) added at the end of a word to give it a different meaning.
  • For example:
    • Normal → root word → (meaning) ordinary
    • Abnormal → prefix + root word → (meaning) out of the ordinary
    • Normalise / Normality → root word + suffix → (meaning) make it normal / commonplace / return to original state

Let's look at an example from a reading comprehension passage:

Perhaps we may not understand the complex vocabulary ‘egocentric’. 

Hence, it is possible to consider trying to understand this complex vocabulary by unpacking the root word, prefix and suffix.

• The word  'ego' comes from the latin root word ‘I’. In this complex vocabulary, it also performs as the prefix, which means ‘self’. Essentially, ‘ego’ refers to a sense of self-esteem / self-importance / pride.
• The word 'centric' is a suffix that means ‘centred’.
• By combining both interpretations, the word 'egocentric' implies ‘thinking of only oneself / overly self-centred’ 

TIP NUMBER TWO

2. Look at the contextual clues surrounding the word

• Contextual clues refer to the surrounding clues that may help us understand the complex vocabulary by making an educated guess. 

Let’s refer to the previous example but applying this new strategy instead: 

As seen above, additional information can be found nearby to help us decipher the meaning of the complex vocabulary. 

TIP NUMBER THREE

3. Look at connector words

• Connectors are conjunctive words that connect ideas together in a sentence.
• Certain functions include connecting because they are similar in meaning (e.g. ‘and’) or they provide a contrasting idea (e.g. ‘but’, ‘however’ and ‘despite’). 
• By knowing the functions of connectors (e.g. cause & effect, similarity, contrast), it makes it easier to deduce the meaning of the complex vocabulary. 

Here’s a different example using the connector ‘and’: 

• Since the word ‘praises’ has a positive connotation and the connector ‘and’ denotes a similar meaning, we can deduce that the word ‘affirmations’ is also positive.
  • In this case, the word ‘affirmations’ refers to giving support and approval. 

Conclusion:

While reading and writing more can help to increase your familiarity with more complex vocabulary, it is also important to pay attention to strategies that can help us to decipher the meaning of a complex word. These strategies can be utilised interchangeably, depending on the level of difficulty of the text, word and student proficiency. 

We hope this helps you in your English journey! 

Links for Reference:

https://www.twinkl.com.sg/teaching-wiki/root-words
https://thefluentlife.com/content/linkers-connectors-english-grammar-guide-types-cause-effect-purpose/#:~:text=Connectors%20in%20English%20grammar%20are,thoughts%20in%20a%20better%20way