Working out a word
| English | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| word parts | 词根词缀 | cí gēn cí zhuì |
| part of speech | 词性 | cí xìng |
| English-English dictionary | 英英词典 | yīng yīng cí diǎn |
You cannot look up every word, and you are not meant to
- An academic page can hold twenty words you do not know. Looking them all up takes an hour and teaches you none of them.
- Guessing from context is a marked skill, not a shortcut.
- Three tools do the guessing: the sentence, the word's parts, and its grammar.
The sentence defines the word
- Context clues come from what surrounds the word: an example after a colon, a contrast after but, a rephrasing after that is.
- A writer who defines a term does it near its first use — so the definition is usually one line away.
- ⚠ A guess supported by the sentence is worth writing down. A guess from the shape of the word alone is not.
"The city's water supply proved precarious: a single dry summer emptied the reservoir."
The colon promises evidence, and the evidence is a failure after one dry summer.
So precarious means unstable, easily lost. The word was never looked up, and the guess is defensible from the sentence — which is exactly what the examiner wants to see.
"The supply proved precarious: a single dry summer emptied the reservoir." What does precarious mean?
The colon introduces evidence, and the evidence is a failure after one dry summer.
Word parts
- Word parts 词根词缀 carry meaning: bio- life, -logy the study of, un- reverses, -able can be done.
- One prefix unlocks a family: inter- in international, interact, intervene, interdependent.
- The part of speech 词性 constrains the meaning too — a word after the is a noun, whatever else you know.
Match each word part to its meaning.
One prefix unlocks a whole family of words, which is why parts beat memorising single words.
In "the reservoir", what must reservoir be?
A word directly after "the" is a noun. Grammar narrows the meaning before you know the word.
The English-English dictionary
- An English-English dictionary 英英词典 teaches usage, register and collocation. A translation hides all three.
- Look for the example sentence, not only the definition. The example is what tells you how the word behaves.
- Record new words with their stress, part of speech and one real sentence — the logbook format every GAC module rewards.
An English-English dictionary shows you the register a word belongs to; a translation usually does not.
That is why the module requires one. Register errors are visible to a marker immediately.
Put the steps of dealing with an unknown word in the order that builds the skill.
Guessing before checking is what turns one word into a technique you can use on the next one.
Guess first, check second. The guess is what builds the skill; the dictionary confirms it. Reversing the order means you learn the word for today and lose the technique for every other word.
Do not trust a translation app for an academic word. It returns a synonym without a register, and the wrong register is instantly visible to a marker — kids in a research report, utilise in a friendly email.