Commonly Misused Words: Quiet, Quite, and Quit

There are a lot of generally misused words. These words usually have exactly similar spelling  with different meaning (homograph), similar pronunciation with different spelling (homophone), or similar spelling and pronunciation with different meaning (homonym). They may cause trouble for either a novice or an advanced learner.

Here are some examples:

• Similar spelling but carrying different meaning (homograph) e.g. 'fair' (adj) may mean 'not excessive/ extreme' or 'very pleasing to the eyes' or 'lacking exceptional ability/ quality'.
  
• Similar pronunciation with different spelling (homophone) e.g. 'bear' and 'bare' (both are pronounced /behr/)
  
• Similar spelling and pronunciation with different meaning (homonym) e.g. 'fair' (adj), chest (noun) which may mean 'part of human torso' or 'a box with a lid', or 'furniture with drawers for keeping clothes'.

How to Ace TOEFL Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Section

Previously I had posted ways to acing listening and grammar section. Now I'd like you to consider the next; i.e. vocabulary and reading comprehension section. 

For your information, there are 45 minutes to complete the 60 questions for short-form TOEFL. For the longer form, however, there are 65 minutes to solve the 90 questions (20 extra minutes with 30 extra questions). 

This section is split into two parts:

• vocabulary (part A)
• reading comprehension (part B)

Word Formation (5) : Opposites

This post is the finale of our series about word formation. To recap, here is what we've already learned so far:

• verb formation
  
• adverb formation
  
• noun formation
  
• adjective formation 

Now we're about to know how to form opposites in English. Uniquely enough, in forming opposites there is no suffixes/ endings involved. All of affixes are beginnings or prefixes.This is totally different from the formation of verbs, adverbs, nouns, and adjectives, which always need suffixes. 

To cut things short, these are the common prefixes people add to verbs, adjectives and  nouns to form opposites or antonyms.

• un- : unbelievable, unhappy, unlucky
  
• in-/il-/ir-/im- : incompetent, illiterate, irresponsible, improbable
  
• dis- : disbelief, discount, discharge
  
• de- : dethrone, destress, demoralize
  
• non- : non-transferrable, non-residents
  

Word Formation (4) : Adjective Formation

Previously on our post series on word formation, we already discussed verb formation, adverb formation, and noun formation. Now it is the time for adjective formation.

Add these suffixes to many nouns to form adjectives:

• -y : smelly, rainy,sunny, lengthy
  
• -ic/-ical : diabolic, mechanical, surgical
  
• -ful : handful, resentful, wishful
  
• -less : careless, breathless, painless
  
• -ly : lovely, orderly *
  

Add this suffix to many verbs to form adjectives:

• -ible/able : evitable, doable, irreversible 

Those are several endings/ suffixes that are mostly used in English. Other than the previously mentioned, there are actually some suffixes we can add to form adjectives.

*) As we notice on the prior post, ending -ly also serves as adverb suffix. Beware of this ending as it may cause confusion.

Word Formation (3) : Noun Formation

Previously on adverb formation, we discussed how to form adverbs correctly. It looks a bit tricky sometimes but don't worry much. As time goes by, with a lot of practice our 'senses' and linguistic instinct are growing sharper. That is the core of language learning, "use it or lose it".

In this post, I am going to show us how to form a noun. The noun formation involves several endings or suffixes. With that said, listed below are some brief yet succinct guidelines for us to remember.

Add these suffixes to many verbs to form nouns:

• -er/-or / -ess (female) : activator, advisor/ adviser, womanizer, shepherdess
  
• -ment : arrangement, department, retirement
  
• -ation/-ion : examination, action, nationalization
  

Add these suffixes to many adjectives to form nouns:

• -ity : cruelty, oddity, solidity
  
• -ness : deafness, kindness,
  
• -hood : likelihood

There are many other suffixes that we can add to form nouns but here for the sake of simplicity, I prefer presenting some most frequently-used suffixes only. A lengthy explanation that leads to confusion is avoided here. Kindly tell me any other suffixes that you know but I didn't include yet.

Word Formation (2) : Adverb Formation

The adverb formation section only involves one suffix/ ending, i.e. -ly. This ending applies in almost all adjectives. Please remember: ALMOST ALL, not ALL.

These are some typical examples that we are likely to use in everyday situation. Here, forming an adverb is as easy as swallowing a piece of cake.

• easy --- easily
• chief --- chiefly
• rapid --- rapidly
• foolish --- foolishly
  

After the sweet regularities, here come the bitter irregularities. That is what we are supposed to be ready whenever we learn a language.Here are some examples of irregular adverb formation that I found. You may add if you discover one(s).

• orderly (adjective) --- in an orderly way/ manner/ fashion
• burly (adjective) --- NO ADVERB
  

As you notice, there are also some adjectives that already have -ly as their endings (e.g. manly, orderly, ladylike, difficult, etc). Therefore we canNOT say manlily,orderlily, ladylikely, difficultly.There are some cases where an adjective is illogical, or awkward in meaning when it is altered into an adverb. I take 'burly' (= big and strong) as the example:

•  The bodybuilder burlily lifted the 100-pound dumbbells.
  

To back my argument, I honestly inform you that I could not find the adjective 'burlily' in my humongous dictionary. But if anyone of you can find 'burlily' in a dictionary, which is reliable of course, let me know that.

Word Formation (1) : Verb Formation

In linguistics, there are three kinds of affix (Indonesian: imbuhan). They are prefixes (beginnings), infixes (middle), and suffixes (endings). In English, however, there are only two of them, i.e. prefixes and suffixes.

In this word formation series, we are about to discuss five topics divided into five posts:

• verb formation
  
• adverb formation
  
• noun formation
  
• adjective formation
  
• opposites
  

This post brings us to the first theme, i.e. verb formation. As we all know, verb formation is part of fundamental knowledge in English. Without having ample understanding (and plenty of practice) on this, our writing composition will be as awful, full of errors and boring as it can be. It will naturally drive your readers away from your blog, your posts, your articles or simply anything we present them, not to mention how hard they ought to understand our erronous writing. In short, reading a piece of writing full of errors is a n ultimate torture for readers.

Straight to the point, we can add endings/ suffixes -ize and -ify  to many (but NOT all) nouns and adjectives to form verbs. Here are the examples:

•  western (adjective) --- westernize (verb)
• legal (adjective) --- legalize (verb)
• modern (adjective) --- modernize (verb)
• popular (adjective) --- popularize (verb)
• beauty (noun) --- beautify (verb)
• liquid (noun) --- liquefy (verb)
• pure (adjective) --- purify (verb)
• simple (adjective) --- simplify (verb)
• glory (noun) --- glorify (verb)
• humid (adjective) --- humidify (verb)
  

As stated before, we cannot add these endings to all nouns and adjectives. There are some exceptions that we have got to be beware of.

• 'rebel (noun) --- rebelify/rebelize re'bel (verb)
• keeper (noun) --- keepify/keepize keep (verb)
• clean (adjective) --- cleanify/cleanize clean (verb)
• annoying (adjective) --- annoyingify/annoyingize annoy (verb)

There are actually hundreds of exceptional cases other than what is presented above but NEVER ask your teacher, lecturers, or anybody if there is any special pattern to determine which word can be added with -ify and -ize and which word cannot. There is no specific pattern in this formation because everything is based on arbitrariness (=unpredictability), meaning that it is up to the convention of society that owns the language (in this case, English). If the society (and the authority, sometimes) thinks a word is acceptable and thus becomes widely used, then it is likely for a word to be considered right. That is it cannot be stressed enough that learning a language is much different from learning natural sciences like physics, mechanics, chemistry, and so forth.

Word Focus: "Young"

Hi again! This time let me tell you all some synonyms of or related to the word 'young'. 

1. little/ small (adjective): children below the age of 6
   
2. teenage (noun): someone between 13-19 years old
   
3. adolescent (noun): someone who developing into an adult
   
4. youthful (adjective): looking young
   
5. kid (noun): a young person (informal)
   
6. teenager (noun): someone who is between 13 and 19
   
7. youth (noun): a man or boy between 15 and 25 (slightly having negative connotation as it refers to a young man involved in fighting or crime)
   
8. minor (noun): a young person who isn't yet legally adult

(source: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)