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Special focus information and content

Just published - new book: The Latin Heart of English: English Vocabulary Practice Volume 1. Click here for details!

Each worksheet in this section focuses on a special area of vocabulary in a novel and unusual way.


Latin and Greek roots - information for teachers

English is a Germanic language, that is, it belongs to the same family of languages as German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish and shares a core vocabulary with these languages. However, a very large proportion of words in English derive from Latin, which is the mother language of French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian. The worksheets in this section explore some of the roots and prefixes which come from Latin, either directly or through French. 

One of the sheets is a chart of prefixes which offers a guide to the likely meanings that the prefixes bring to the roots. The meanings are not always what can be expected and some meanings can not be predicted. The first two activities focus on the differences in register between Latin and German synonyms. The other exercises examine words originating from Latin and show how their meanings relate to the meaning of the root in Latin.



Click on the links below to look at the free sample sheets.



Latin/German 1
Latin/German 2
Teacher's notes

These focus on differences in register between synonyms depending on their origins. 

Latin roots: Prefixes A chart with the most common prefixes used in this section.
Latin root: scribe/scrip eg: describe, inscription, scribble
Latin root: spec/spic eg: aspect, inspection, perspective
Latin root: cap/ceive/cept eg: accept, capture, deceive 
Latin root: duce/duct eg: reduce, conduct, induction
Latin root: fer eg: suffer, interfere, defer
Latin root: pone/pos eg: exposure, proposal, impose
Latin root: quir/ques/quis 1 eg: conquest, require, requisition
Special Focus Latin Roots Answers Answers to all the activities in this section

Also available under subscription: ced/cede/cess, clude/clus, clam/claim, ject, miss/mit, tract, volve/volut, move/mot, quir/ques/quis 2