生活英語對話 Episode 54: A mother-daughter chat

本單元是關于母女聊天的對話

Michal: Helen, this place is enormous!

Helen: It's just a house, don't get so overexcited by it. And promise me you won't treat me differently after this visit.

Mum: Hello! Just drop your bags anywhere dears. Michal, will you get daddy in from the garden? Then we'll all have a nice cup of Chinese tea together.

Michal: Of course.

Mum: Oh Helen, he's adorable! I know I said you were too young for love but that was ages ago and it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.

Helen: Mum, I think he's the one!

Mum: Oh me too, I watched you two coming up the path and I saw how you looked at him. Do I hear wedding bells?

Helen: Don't say that, you'll jinx us!

Vocabulary:字匯

prerogative:特權

right or privilege

Do I hear wedding bells?: 快結婚了?

Are you going to get married soon?

to jinx something: 帶來壞運氣

to cause bad luck or to turn good luck into bad luck

本單元的語言點是前綴，在一些子的前面加上字首，這個字的意義就改變了。 舉例來說，'excited'的前面加上'over'就變成overexcited，意思是'too much' 或 'too excited'

Prefixes

You can make change the meaning of some words by adding prefixes (extra letters at the beginning of words).

For example, you can change the meaning of 'excited' to mean 'too much' or 'too excited' by adding 'over' to the beginning of it to make overexcited.

Too much, more than, many and do/be more than:

too much - over

excited (adj) - overexcited

spend (v) - overspend

confident (adj) - overconfident

more than - super

market (n) - supermarket

natural (adj, n) - supernatural

hero (n) - superhero

many - multi

layered (adj) - multilayered

tasking (n) - multitasking

purpose (n) - multi-purpose

do/be more than - out

run (v) - outrun

sell (v) - outsell

grow (v) – outgrow

Not and opposite:

not - non

verbal (adj) - non-verbal

smoking (adj) - non-smoking

returnable (adj)- non-returnable

opposite - in

competent (adj) - incompetent

convenient (adj) - inconvenient

expensive (adj) - inexpensive

opposite - im (before 'p')

possible (adj) - impossible

patient (adj) - impatient

perfect (adj) - imperfect

opposite - il (before 'l')

legal (adj) - illegal

legible (adj) - illegible

logical (adj) - illogical

opposite - ir (before 'r')

replaceable (adj) - irreplaceable

responsible (adj) - irresponsible

relevant (adj) - irrelevant

Using hyphens with prefixes:

Most words which are created with prefixes don't use hyphens. However, some prefixed words do use hyphens, for example, the prefixes co (co-operate), pro (pro-government) and non (non-starter).

Some words with prefixes are hyphenated and other words with the same prefix aren't. For example multilayered and multi-purpose There's no hard and fast rule why this is the case.