Negative Prefixes Learn English Grammar
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Hi everybody, and welcome back to EnglishClass101.com’s
Youtube channel!
My name is Alisha, and today I’m going to
talk about some common prefixes in the negative.
So these are common prefixes but they all
create a negative meaning in the word they’re
attached to.
So maybe you saw our last video about prefixes,
or maybe you saw our other videos about prefixes,
but to remind you, a prefix is usually kind
of a small word, it looks like a small word,
but there are letters that are added to the
beginning of a word to change the meaning
of the word.
So maybe it’s two, three, four letters, it
seems like a small word, attached to the beginning
of another word and it changes the meaning.
So in other lessons we’ve talked about some
prefixes which have a lot of different meanings,
but today I’m going to focus on prefixes which
create a negative meaning, or a “not”
meaning in the words that they are attached
to, and we’ll also talk about some of the
histories of these words and find out a little
bit about why they mean what they mean.
So let’s begin!
Let’s talk about the first negative prefix!
ILL.
We pronounce it as ill-.
So when we add ill- to a word it creates the
meaning of “not” plus that word.
The first word is illogical.
Logical is the base here, meaning having logic
or having a reason behind it, illogical, therefore,
means not logical.
If you’re Star Trek fan, you might have heard
Spock say this to any number of characters
in the show, he would say highly illogical.
Illogical means not logical, it’s not a reasonable
decision, for example.
Illogical, not logical.
Another one is illegal.
So legal here means following the law, legal
is something we are allowed to do in our country
or in our community; illegal means not legal,
so for example, owning a gun is illegal in
some countries, or killing people is illegal,
these are things that are against the law,
not legal, illegal.
Okay, one more example, ill-advised.
So ill-advised means not well advised, it’s
not a good idea, an ill-advised decision,
a poorly advised decision.
So this ill- means not good or a negatively
advised decision here.
An ill-advised choice, an ill-advised plan,
for example.
These all mean “not” plus the word that they’re
attached to.
Okay, let’s continue to the next one, also
a negative, the next one is im-.
Im is the pronunciation.
Let’s look at the first one, impossible.
So possible means able to do something or
it’s possible to do; impossible means we cannot
do that thing, it is not possible, not able
to do something.
Impossible.
So this is a very common word.
It’s impossible to go to space without a space
suit, for example.
Okay, let’s look at one more, imperfect.
So perfect means no flaws, perfect means there’s
nothing else to do, it’s complete on its own,
something which is fine.
So imperfect means not perfect, not perfect,
this is an imperfect solution, an imperfect
dinner, for example.
Something that is not perfect is imperfect.
Okay, one more, this word is impeccable.
Now, this is an interesting word, this root
part “peccable,” this “peck” part comes from
a Latin word which means “to sin.”
So “to sin” plus we have this “able” part,
which means able to, and we have this word,
“peck,” which refers to the Latin meaning"sin"
or"to do a bad behavior," then we finally
have im- here, meaning “not,” so in other
words, not able to sin or not able to do something
bad.
In modern English, impeccable means flawless
or perfect or really really nice, something
that’s very very good is impeccable.
So for example, she speaks French impeccably,
perfectly, flawlessly, beautifully; or this
was an impeccable lunch.
This is usually used in situations where something
is really really high quality or really good.
Impeccable.
So this is an interesting word with this Im-
prefix attached.
Okay, let’s look at some more.
Next, let’s go to in-.
We attach in- to make words have the opposite
meaning.
So next, indistinguishable.
So here, again, we have “able,” we saw in
“impeccable,” too, right?
So “able” meaning able to do something, plus
we have “distinguish,” so distinguished means
we can understand the differences between
two things, two or more things, to distinguish
something, and able to distinguish something.
Here, with in- we see not able to distinguish,
or not able to understand the differences
between two things.
So the word indistinguishable, when comparing
two objects, or two or more of something,
we can’t tell, we don’t know the difference
between these things, they are indistinguishable.
So, for example, the breads that I bought
at the store, although they were from different
brands were indistinguishable, in terms of
taste, they had the same taste; or those two
buildings are indistinguishable, they look
exactly the same.
Okay, let’s look at another one, indeterminate.
So determine, this the root here, would be
determined, so to fix or to decide to determine
something, usually like a date or a deadline
or an amount of something, to determine something.
However, in- means “not,” so not determined.
This is used for something that has not been
chosen, not been decided.
So an indeterminate number of people, or an
indeterminate amount of time, so a time that
has not been decided, a number of people that
have not been decided, is indeterminate.
Okay, one more, the word invincible.
Maybe you know this word, so this part we
see in-, the prefix meaning “not,” and then
vincible.
Here, again, we have this -ble, in this case
we have -ible, but you can see “able” and
“ible” here, they have kind of the same sound,
yeah?
They both refer to the ability to do something.
So, we also have this “vinc-” right here,
this comes from the Latin word, a Latin word
which means “to be conquered,” so to be able
to be conquered is essentially what’s happening
here, able to be conquered.
However, in- being attached means not able
to be conquered, invincible.
So if you play video games, for example, you
know that in some cases there’s like a special
bonus, like, when mario gets a star, he becomes
invincible, you cannot kill him, you cannot
conquer him.
Invincible.
This is the word, the meaning, the Latin roots
of the word invincible.
Okay, let’s go to the next one, ir-.
Ir- is the pronunciation, it sounds like the
body part “ear.”
Irresponsible, for example, is our first one.
So “responsible” here, responsible meaning
can take care of tasks, can do the things
you are supposed to do; someone who is responsible
can be relied on, for example.
So irresponsible means not responsible, like,
my coworker is so irresponsible, he never
comes to work on time, or my roommate is so
irresponsible, I have to wash all the dishes.
Irresponsible, not responsible.
Okay, another word, irredeemable.
So, again, we see this “able” ending, able
meaning able to, and redeem.
So redeem, we can use, for example, with,
like, a coupon or some kind of bonus at like
a supermarket or at a store or something.
So to redeem something means to receive something
in exchange for something else.
So, like, to redeem yourself to your boss,
so you do something and you get favor from
your boss.
Or in the case of shopping, you could say
I want to redeem a coupon for a special product,
for example.
So you do something in exchange for, usually,
something positive.
So redeemable means able to do that, able
to get kind of that positive benefit from
something.
But we have the negative ir- at the beginning,
irredeemable, so something that we cannot
redeem.
So this coupon is irredeemable, we cannot
use it, or this was an irredeemable offense,
so someone does something and they cannot
redeem themselves in the future.
Irredeemable.
So the last example here is irrespective.
We see that the base here is “respect,” maybe,
respect, so irrespective is used when we want
to say without respect for something else
so we don’t respect something or someone does
not respect an established standard, or an
established order, for example.
So for example, in a sentence we might say,
he challenged the boss irrespective of the
company hierarchy, so not respecting the company
hierarchy.
Or this list is irrespective of the company’s
standards, for example.
So not respecting something else.
Okay, let’s go to our final prefix for today,
non-.
So we attach non- to some words to make the
meaning of “not.”
First one is non-sequential.
So here we see “sequential” at the end here,
with this kind of base, sequence, so sequence
means in order, in a sequence of something.
However, non- means not in sequence, non-sequential.
So for example, participant numbers are listed
in non-sequential order.
Or for example, let’s see, salaries are listed
in non-sequential order.
So sequential means in sequence, in a specific,
usually, numerical or chronological, by time
order.
Non-sequential means that they’re not in order
from 1 to 10, for example.
They’re separated, non-sequential, not in
sequence.
Similar-sounding is this word, non-sequitur.
Non-sequitur, this is actually from a Latin
phrase which means it does not follow, non-sequitur.
So here we see this “sequit” again which we
saw in sequential, this root word means to
follow something else.
So a non-sequitur as a noun is usually, like,
a statement or some kind of behavior that
doesn’t seem to quite match the other behaviors
around it, or it doesn’t seem to follow a
conversation.
So for example, a non-sequitur comment could
be a comment completely unrelated to a conversation,
or a non-sequitur action, for example, something
completely unrelated to the situation at hand.
So maybe I make a lot of non-sequitur comments
in the Top Words series.
Okay, so this is an interesting word, non-sequitur,
it does not follow, so something which does
not quite follow the things happening around
it.
Finally, let’s look at the word nonsense.
So “sense,” kind of going back to this word
“logic.”
So sense means something we can understand
or something which seems logical, but nonsense
means there’s no sense, there is no way to
understand it, it’s something that’s very
difficult or impossible to understand.
So nonsense, like, my co-workers idea was
nonsense, it was impossible to understand,
there was no sense about it.
This is the word that we can use with non-,
non- and sense together.
Okay, so these are a few different prefixes
that we can use to make negative words.
All of these prefixes here will make a word
negative, please be careful, you cannot mix
and match these prefixes with different words,
these are set phrases.
For example, we cannot say ill-possible, we
cannot say im-legal, for example.
You have to study these as they are, you can’t
just choose the prefix that you prefer.
But if you see these prefixes attached to
a word, now you can probably guess the meaning
or at least part of the meaning, so I hope
that that’s useful for you.
So thanks very much for watching this episode,
I hope that it was useful for you.
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or making an example word in the comments,
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