This is an all-ers-English podcast, episode 2246.
Silly suffixes, part 1.
Don't let I-O-N throw you off.
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When it comes to suffixes, do you look for patterns?
We recommend that you also look for exceptions.
Today, find out which verbs don't follow the pattern when you add or remove I-O-N in English.
Hello, Aubrey, how's it going today?
I'm great, Lindsay. I have a question for you.
Yes. When is the last time you had a really good conversation?
Oh my gosh, that's a great question.
I guess I had some good conversations this past weekend.
We ran a race up in the mountains and we had a really nice lunch with a couple of friends and just got into some good stuff.
But what about you? I love to hear it because it would be a bummer if you're like, I feel like it's been a while.
Maybe six months. No, we don't want that, right?
I have them at least weekly because we have open conversation club with anyone in any of our courses.
And it's always a fantastic conversation.
I love it. We use really fun conversation starters, learning great things about them.
And so yeah, that's amazing.
Oh wow. That is amazing that we have a chance to meet our students every week, the students in our courses.
And I just can't wait to meet more students.
Tonight we have our fluency party, which I'm super excited about.
Yes. Now you know, I hope all of you listening, everyone in our courses are able to attend.
So I hope you guys listening are going to be there.
So the reason I brought this up, I wanted to ask you about conversation because I recently heard a mistake where an English learner said conversate instead of converses.
Because they were taking conversation and trying to turn it into a verb of these problems with prefixes and suffixes.
It's so easy to think you can follow a pattern and add a certain suffix.
But a lot of verbs break the rules.
English is tricky that way, right?
Yeah, you're right. Sometimes we can't follow a pattern.
I have actually heard native speakers make that mistake, mistake as well though.
So I have to. I have a really conversate from natives to your right.
This can be, yeah, native is like this mistake as well.
Yeah, yeah, it's true. So then in that case, we're getting into what kind, what element of speech then today, Aubrey?
What is the. Yes. You're talking about term suffixes.
Yes. Suffixes which are at the end of the word.
A prefix comes at the beginning of the word, like pre-un-non, and then suffixes come at the end, like I-O-N-ness, Asian, right?
All of these chunks that we add to the end of the word.
Often to convert like an adjective to a noun.
Yes. But the problem in English is there are some sort of patterns, but a lot of words break these patterns.
So we're going to tell you the best way to learn these and use them correctly.
And today we're going to highlight a few common mistakes we hear with them.
Okay. All right. Well, let's just dive right into the first category then Aubrey.
But first before we do that, I do want to remind our listeners to hit that follow button.
Aubrey, why should they be following all ears English?
Yes. Well, first of all, because this is a two-part series.
Yes. When I planned this, the next day I heard another student error with Ness, the suffix, N-E-S-S.
So we're going to do a part two focusing on that one.
But always, you don't want to miss any of these amazing episodes.
So be sure to hit follow, guys.
All right. Hit that follow button.
And if you're on YouTube watching this, which you could be, it could give you a whole different experience of all ears English.
You would go ahead and hit subscribe.
All right. So hit the right button, guys.
And come back for the next part of this episode.
Next part of this series.
Aubrey, where to go first?
Where should we go? Yeah.
So we have a few sort of pro tips for the exceptions today, right?
You may have learned some patterns in as you're learning.
But our first one is, you can't always drop I-O-N.
So for example, for many nouns, we drop the suffix I-O-N and then it becomes a verb, right?
So donate and becomes donate.
Education comes educate.
But this isn't always the case.
And that's what causes errors.
Like for example, conversation, right?
Yeah, you can't say. As we said, really, we don't say conversate, right?
Nope. I love that it exists.
Although I keep it, I think it does come to my first week.
Because we hear it so often.
It's almost being adopted.
Yes. But the verb is actually conversed.
If we're going to converse together, we're having a conversation.
Okay. So don't just assume, again, that you can just drop that shin sound and have the verb.
It doesn't always, I mean, would you say most of the time it works that way, Aubrey?
Or verbs do follow that pattern, usually.
But there are exceptions.
I think the two most common are first of all conversation.
And the second one, this is a mistake I have also heard.
Electrification is not electrificate.
You can't just drop that shin, but actually electrify.
So this is pretty common exception where sometimes you drop and have a Y instead of the eight.
Yes. Interesting. And it's hard because the term electrocution and electrocute would follow the rule.
Right. So confusing. Yes.
And this verb, I want to share, we use it a lot because it doesn't just mean charge with electricity to electrify.
We also use it idiomatically to mean to cause a sense of great excitement.
The audience was electrified by the ballerinas performance.
We use it idiomatically like that.
I'm going to start using that word in that way.
I don't use it in that way, but I should because it's, I mean, it's great.
It's very high level and impressive.
I feel intelligent using that in a sense.
Electrified the audience.
I love it. Brought them to live.
Got them excited. So good.
So good. So speech can electrify an audience.
Right. This one we, we imagine like a buzz of excitement because something is amazing.
Right. Say they were electrified.
Yeah. And speaking of speeches tonight is also in addition to it being our fluency party.
It's also the first presidential debate we're recording this at the end of June guys.
Ooh, this is a big deal. A little nervous about that to be honest.
Just in general are electrified about that.
Right. The anticipation you could also say that, yeah.
You know, people are electrified.
Right. So we're focusing on IOM today.
So the second tip we want to share, right?
We're talking about how you can't always drop IOM.
Yeah. You also can't always add IOM.
So in general, the pattern, we add the suffix IOM to many verbs in English to create their noun form.
So for example, we take locate and add the and we have location.
Right. Or like create, right?
We have the noun creation.
Okay. But we don't do this with every verb.
So this can if you're trying to just follow that pattern all the time, you're going to make mistakes.
Oh my gosh. I wonder what are some of the common mistakes or the ones that don't follow the pattern, Aubrey?
What about the word incline?
Yes. And this is what inspired this episode.
I heard a student say we were tired because of the inclination on the hike.
And so they're trying to take incline and add Asian and think that's still a noun.
But inclination is actually a totally different word.
So let's define both of these.
I hope you avoid this mistake.
Yeah, that's interesting.
So it's not that you can't do it.
It's just that it literally changes the meaning of the word and the context entirely.
So just incline itself is that slope.
Right. How sharp is the incline on the hike?
Right. It's already a noun.
Right. Exactly. Do you, Lindsay, when you take a hike, do like a sharp incline or do you prefer it to be gradual?
Well, I know in the West, we have switchbacks.
In the East, we do not have switchbacks.
You go straight up to mountain.
They don't exist. And so that is sometimes kind of steep hiking.
And so, I can see the trade-offs switchbacks can be kind of painful.
I think it takes longer than it needs to.
Do you feel that way about Western hiking?
Sometimes there's both options right here in the T-tons.
There's a hike table rock where you're going to the top of the grand T-ton.
And you can either go up the face.
There is a very steep incline.
Or you can take, I think it's called strawberry or something like that where it's like incline, switchbacks all the way up.
And it takes like four hours longer.
That it is a lot more gradual.
OK. And sometimes it's like, how do I choose which one do I want?
I don't know. Maybe not.
It depends on how my knees feel maybe.
But let's go into inclination, too.
This is a totally different word.
It means the tendency to act a certain way or feel a certain way.
OK. We also use the words disposition or propensity.
Yeah. Rise. For example, sentence.
So for example, I have no inclination to work today.
That means I have no move in the side.
I'm not moving in that direction emotionally or physically or in any way.
Exactly. We might say desire instead.
But yeah, it's like I just don't want to act or feel like doing something.
OK. So that's fascinating.
So again, it's not that you can't do it.
It's just that it will completely change the meaning.
And it won't make any sense if you use inclination when you're talking about going up a mountain.
OK. Right. And there are a few other examples.
One is conviction and convict or convict.
This is especially tricky.
So convict is a verb. That means to declare someone guilty of a crime.
But spelled the same way.
It's also a noun with the emphasis on the first syllable convict, which is a person found guilty of a crime.
Wow. That's really tricky.
And that could actually be another episode.
We could do another day or like that.
And there's a few of them.
Maybe we've talked about a lot of them.
We're with the syllable emphasis changing.
It's a different word entirely.
Yeah. Another episode for another day.
And then conviction is a formal declaration that someone is guilty of a crime.
So what was their conviction?
OK. Yes. And it has a second meaning of a firmly held belief or opinion.
Right? We'll say I've always had a firm conviction that everyone deserves justice.
Love it. Yes. And we know that about you.
I've already shared that before on the podcast.
That's true for me. I know a lot of these examples that says are like, man, I might agree with this or not.
This one. I agree with. She agrees.
I love it. So good. Yeah.
All right. OK. We are back.
And let's do a role play to see how this really comes to life.
I think this will be the key learning piece for listeners today, Aubrey.
All right. Absolutely.
OK. So you and I are at the beach for this role play.
Yeah. It wouldn't be nice.
Oh, it would be. I could use some beach time.
I know. Got a love beach time.
Here we go. So this is quite the incline.
It's hard to pull the wagon in the sand.
I need to have a conversation with my kids about staying close.
Oh, yeah. Their inclination is to wander pretty far.
Yeah. Gigi's hunting seashells.
She's absolutely electrified every time she sees one.
That's awesome. This is kind of a fun way to use it.
Well, we'll get to it. Let's go through the whole thing.
Yeah. That'll share. Because I like using electrified this way, too, for just one person being excited.
Yeah. Good. I feel like I have a takeaway for today to start using this word.
Yes. Good. And so I said first, this is quite the incline.
It's hard to pull the wagon in the sand.
So it sounds like maybe we're walking up a sand dune.
Like the sand dunes they have in Cape Toth, which is the worst trying to pull the wagon in steep sand, especially if it's deep sand.
Oh, no, thank you. It's our workout.
Yes, it is. For sure. And then you said, I need to have a conversation with my kids about staying close.
So this is interesting because that verb converse.
We talk about like conversing together, having like an interesting conversation.
Yeah. But we wouldn't use it here when I'm talking with my kids.
I'm talking more about like lecturing them about what they want to do.
But we do use it. We'll say, I need to have a conversation with my kids about this.
And it's interesting how it's sort of a different meaning.
I thought about this as I wrote the role play.
Yeah. We're not having like a conversation about some deep topic.
I'm actually using this word to mean like lecturing them.
That's true. That's true.
And it's also important to know that conversation is so much more common.
Yeah. Converse. Two converse wouldn't really feel right here.
And in many other scenarios, it's a much less use.
Yeah. I think it's more formal and less common.
Yeah. Maybe it's more about an exchange back and forth.
Less common for sure, right?
Exactly. Right. I feel like you'll hear it when talking about politics or on the news, right?
They were conversing about some serious topic.
Yeah. In casual conversations with friends, we would just say talk.
Or speak, love it. Have a conversation.
Yeah. And then now let's go to inclination.
So yeah, their inclination is to wander pretty far.
So meaning they tend to do this.
They tend to want to do this.
They lean in that drag. They usually will go far, right?
Totally different. From the physical incline, dragging something a wagon up the sand dunes, right?
Yeah. You might have felt like this is a little, this feels a little formal for this conversation at the beach because this word also is a little less common a little more formal.
We would probably just say they tend to wander, ooh, or they have a tendency to wander.
Yeah. Inclination is a little sort of up level.
It's a little, but I don't think it's so far, you know, in another ball field.
I think, yeah, I would say this, my dog has an inclination to want to play or to play more often than most dogs.
I don't think it's totally.
We do sometimes. Yeah. For sure.
For sure. I would say like, that's my inclination.
Yeah. I'm like, that's interesting.
And then, what did you say, Aubrey?
I said, he's absolutely electrified every time she sees one.
So this is a little bit hyperbolic, a little bit, I'm exaggerating, right?
Yeah. And I use this this way sometimes too.
I'm like, instead of saying she's super excited, I'll say like she's absolutely electrified.
I'm just exaggerating how excited she is.
Well, it's fun to be able to describe something in that kind of vivid detail, paint a picture.
It's very common to be hyperbolic in American English, right?
We've talked about this on the podcast, maybe Lesso in British English or other forms of English.
I mean, you know, if you're in the US and you want to speak in this way, just saying big things, then do it.
Yeah. Right. Yes. And it's appropriate.
Like, she is super excited about finding seashells.
Yeah. So this is appropriate.
Yes, I'm exaggerating.
But if you just mean they like kind of like something kind of excited, this is pretty extreme to say they're electrified.
So you would only use this if someone's super excited.
Right. For sure. For sure.
What's your takeaway for today?
And my takeaway is to start using a new word.
What's yours? I love that, right?
So I use the electrified Lindsay.
And mine is, I feel like we just can't always trust patterns in English, right?
A suffix like ION can't be added to every verb and you can't remove it from every noun and expect that to be the correct verb.
So we want to share that.
The best way to learn words with suffixes is not to memorize rules and memorize lists, but to take in a lot of English.
Listen to podcasts. Listen to TV shows.
You're going to hear so many words with suffixes used correctly.
And that's how you build those patterns and just know which is correct.
Yeah. And I think it's OK to look for patterns.
I think it's normal as human beings.
Like I said, when I learned Arabic, I said I was desperately searching for patterns, desperately in real time, before she was going to quiz me five minutes later, kind of panicking.
The brain wants to find patterns.
That's OK. Don't fight against that.
But look for the patterns and then also expect the rules which prove the pattern, right?
The rule, what is that expression?
Like the exception proves the rule sometimes, right?
Right. Yeah. It's going to happen.
You're going to find exceptions.
So just don't stress about it, right?
Connection, not perfection.
Like you're going to, whether you make mistakes or not, we hear students make these mistakes all the time.
Nobody cares. We understand what you say or saying.
And that's the most important thing.
Connection is always the most important thing here in all our English.
I love it, Abri. Well, I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for bringing this great topic today to the show.
Awesome. See you next time.
All right. Have a good one.
Bye. You too, Gray. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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