ENGLISH

1.) How long is the class?

• 10 weeks
• 10 days
• 10 hours

2.) Why is the class so full?

• people must understand word parts
• nobody speaks English
• they like the professor

3.) Where do sounds in English come from?

• Latin, Greek, German
• Latin, Arabic, English
• German, Greek, Arabic

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to English Etymology 201. I hope that all of you have found a seat and can hear me; if not, please let me know. My name is Professor Patricia Morris; I'll be your instructor for the next 10 weeks. As you can probably tell, this is one of the most popular-and crowded-classes on campus; indeed, every time this etymology course is offered, this room is filled to capacity. Why is that? Well, in order to use the English language, it's very important to have at least a basic understanding of word parts. Just to cite one estimate-and there are many-there are over 1 million words in the English lexicon.

If you are an English learner, you might wonder how you can possibly remember all of these words. Well, for one thing, you don't have to; no native speaker exists who knows all of the words in the English language. Besides, there are shortcuts. Shortcuts? Yes, if you know the most commonly used prefixes, roots, and suffixes-most derived from Latin, Greek and Germanic sources-you will understand a good number of English words when you first run across them. Ears perk up whenever I put it this way-knowing the word parts that make up many English words will substantially increase your vocabulary. This is probably the number one reason why this class is so popular.