英语词汇学习的一点体悟

Every word is the verbalization of an idea.

Words are symbols of ideas.

For example, languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, and French, all belong to the language family known as “romance languages.” The romance languages evolved from Latin, the language used in ancient Rome. The Latin word Romanicus,meaning “Roman,” was later shortened to “Romance,” which is where the language family name came from. Latin itself, however, evolved from the Indo-European language, an ancient protolanguage, which is the origin of most of the languages spoken in modern Europe and parts of Asia.

Language Family

我的学习

接触英语的时间不短了，说一说个人对英语单词学习的一些体悟。

首先谈一谈语言和造字的逻辑和基础。人生来是不会说话的，所以无所谓国别，无所谓语言和文字，所以所有语言都应该是有相通之处。

单词包括两方面的意思，具体意思（本来，物质）和抽象意思（精神，引申）。

那么在在还没有文字的时候，人与人说话的时候都说什么？最基本的，应该包括音调和表情。因为人和动物都会发声，有音高音低，音调音色也不同；人会笑，会有表情，动物也一样，只不过程度不同罢了。还应该包括动作，人有眼，能识物，用动作比划物体的轮廓，很多基本的字词都是象形字，这样的文字是根据食物的形状来表现的。

因此，语言文字的基础应该是象形发音，以及后面不断的扩展引申，一直发展出今天这么多的词汇，庞杂而丰富，包罗万象。据说英语词汇至今已达百万之多。

所有的词汇都是在最简单的词根的基础上引申转化而来的。越是具象简单的事物的单词，越是词根。比如：看、听、吃饭、走路、推、拉、上、下，等等。

很多抽象的词汇，都是由在简单词汇或具象词汇引申转化而来。具体的方式有添加前后缀、细微的变化词根、清辅音浊化、饱满元音变换为轻音，甚至省略元音。

英语的重点在于音，汉语的重点在形。英文单词的扩展基于发音便利，汉字的扩展基于象形。

英文分为元音字母和辅音字幕。元音字母就只有五个，a, e, i, o, u，其他的都是辅音字母，元音字母可以省略，元音字母可以互换（刘一男老师称为通假），互换后原意思不变。

辅音字母也有通假的情况，例如，b, p, m, f通假，还有r, l, n， g, k, h， t, d, s，这些字母组内互换后，变换出的单词意思不变，其实是这些字母发音相近，所以互换后听起来像原来的单词，所以称为意思不变。

以上只是冰山一角。英语中，前后缀的使用，来自其他语言的词汇，文化背景和基础，经过漫长的发展演变，造就了今天的语言。

英语造词法

查字典尽量使用英英字典：例如Cambridge Dictionary和Merriam-Webster。

Portmanteau 混合词

Created by combining parts of two or more words.

a single word made from two words, like smog = smoke+fog

agitation + propaganda = agitprop 鼓动

acronym 首字母缩略字

BBC/NBA/US/EU

Roots + Suffixes

prehistorical = pre + history + cal

Eponym（人名）

A word derived from someone’s name.

eg. Bowdlerize: delete/modify(a text)

Toponym(地名)

A word named after a place.

eg. Bunk

Contronyms or Janus words

Words that are their own antonyms. 自己是自己的反义词。

eg: Cleave 粘贴，分开

Janurary
buckle
bolt

Etymology 语源学（History）

Latin or Greek.

the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.

Morphology 词法学(Structure)

Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and forms a core part of linguistic study today. The term morphology is Greek and is a makeup of morph- meaning ‘shape, form’, and -ology which means ’the study of something’.

Silent/Sounded Consonant Pairs

mal-. Below are a few examples:
Malign (verb): to speak evil of; to say harmful things that are untrue; to slander. The silent g in malign represents another good example of the spelling-meaning connection we discussed in Lecture 2. That g serves as a visual clue that malign is related to malignant. Word pairs that contain such visual clues are common in English and are known as silent/ sounded consonant pairs.

背单词和猜词意的方法（induction）

重点抓动词，形容词，名词；词的性质和方向，好坏，褒贬，大小。

to be good/bad（形容词）
to become/make good/bad（动词）
good/bad things（名词）
godd/bad people
good/bad thoughts

一般经验（猜词义）：

一般带a的表示声音大，好词
一般带i的，为了发音方便，或者有贬义
发音好的有褒义
发音奇怪或难听的有贬义
短的单词比较基础和简单，简单的名次动词
长单词一般是引伸义，情感方面的形容词

Encountering an Unfamiliar Word(遇到生词怎么做?)

See if context and morphological clues help you figure out the meaning, to infer
Mark the word to look up later
Record the word in your vocabulary notebook
Read 5-10 usage examples

The Goden Line

Denotation(主要意思) vs Connotation（隐含，情感，意思，次要）

The denotation of a word or expression is its direct meaning. Its connotation consists of the ideas or meanings associated with it or suggested by it.

总结

所以说，词汇学习要抓住重点方向和方法，那就是从词源，词根着手去学习。

如果熟练掌握以上知识，对词汇（造字）的理解（所有语言均适用）上应该给上了一个新台阶。

如果还想继续深入一门语言，那应该需要深入了解这个国家的历史和文化了，包括但不限于一些经典文学作品等等。

Best mnemoic device for learning vocabulary: Etymology(history) and morphology(structure) of words.