ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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What’s a prefix and what’s a suffix?

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Why are prefixes and suffixes even important?

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We don’t see them learning about us… [Prefixes and Suffixes book reading Humans for Dummies]

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Well, believe it or not, they’ll come in handy a lot.

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Understanding prefixes and suffixes help us decode and understand new words. [Baby in a cot]

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Well…not all new words.

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First, we have to learn what a root word is.

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A root word is a word without a beginning or ending part added to it. [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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It’s just pure…simple…basic.

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Like cool, natural spring water. [Waterfall]

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Or a hot dog without any toppings.

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Whichever comparison works for you.

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Let’s take the word run.

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Run is a root word, because it has no beginning or ending part.

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It’s not super-run or run-a-thon or anything crazy like that. [Someone jogging]

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Just…run.

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But…what if we added “re”, which means “again,” to the beginning of run?

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We would make the word “rerun”, which means to run again.

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Even if it does usually refer more to an old episode of Big Bang Theory than someone who’s

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gearing up to do another lap… [Guy looks tired on the couch]

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“Re” would be a prefix, because prefix is a part of a word that’s placed at the

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beginning.

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What if we added “ing” to the end of “run”?

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We’d have to stick another “n” on there…but we’d get the word “running”.

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And presto - the verb tense has changed.

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Now, instead of saying something like “I am going to run,” you can say, “I am running.” [Guy running on an athletics track]

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Same root word, same basic idea…but it gives us a slightly different interpretation of

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how this running business is going down.

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Knowing our prefixes and suffixes can help us understand words…

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…and can also help us change the meaning of root words we already know…

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…by allowing us to add prefixes and suffixes to change their meaning.

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Like… “finish” could be “finishing,” “finishes,” “unfinished,”… [Guy crosses the finishing line]

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…oh.

01:44

You just wanted us to finish.

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Roger that.

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