English Grammar - Word Endings - What are suffixes?

Teacher favorites. What should we do now? Hi. James, from EngVid. Looking for classroom stuff because you know we have so much here for you. But before I forget, I can't do my job without my favorite pal in the world, Mr. E. And this lesson today, actually, guys, it's sort of a lesson that we did before, and it's a second part. I didn't say it was a second part, but it is. You'll go back -- if you go to EngVid, you can see the lesson on prefixes, which funny enough, is the beginning of the word, and this is the end of the word, which are called "suffixes".

Let's start from the beginning. What are suffixes? Let's go to the board. A suffix: "suf" means -- this part of the word here actually means "under". It means "under" or "lower". Why? When we did prefixes, prefixes meant "before", which meant you put two, three, or five letters in front of a word. And that actually changed the meaning of the word if you remember. If we did "do" and "redo", they're not the same meaning. "Do" -- one time, "redo" means "start again".

When we do suffixes, a suffix goes on the end of the word. And I'm going to try to explain to you by going here first. Grammar suffixes. You've seen these before. S, ED, and ING. When we have S -- you know if you see a pronoun ending in S, like -- sorry. A verb, I should say. "She is", "he goes" -- you know by seeing the S on the end of that verb that that verb is taking on a third person singular. In other words, it's talking about a person we don't know, right? And it's a singular person. So that's the grammar suffix, one letter added on. When you see ED on the end of the word, you know that that means this verb is in the past. "I watch TV all the time." "I watched television last night." "I stopped my car in front of the house." This is something that happened in the past, not now. When we have the third ending you're familiar with, ING, they're used for gerunds. And you know the gerund has three uses: It's either a present participle -- working, talking, singing; an adjective -- a climbing tree or a swimming pool; or just a noun -- cooking. Yeah, I know. All end in ING, but they have three different functions.

Well, these are examples of suffixes -- letters at the end of the word that change the class or the verb function, you might say, or the grammar function. But it doesn't actually change the meaning of the word. "Swim", "swimming" -- similar. Okay?
Now, how do I explain this? Well, when we do this, we do the same thing here, which is grammar, specifically, but now, we can change the word class. What I mean is going from -- this is just changing a verb. We're actually going to change the class from, maybe, a noun to an adjective or an adverb, okay? With me so far? It's easy. We're going to add a few letters at the end of the word, and it will change what type of word it is. Is it a noun? Is it a verb? Is it an adverb? Is it an adjective? That's it. And by doing these -- adding some of these, that's how we do it in English. Excuse me. So let's take a look.

These are the top three that you'll find in English. On the last video, at the end of the video, I told you, like, we don't use these for 95 percent, so I'll fix this now. These are the most common, and what I mean by "common" is "most useful for you." There are many other suffixes. But these are most useful for you to kind of figure out or understand words that you'll see because this will tell you what's, basically, the meaning. So I'm going to help you with what the meaning is and how it changes it. So you can look at words and kind of go, "Okay, this must be a noun because I see this ending. Or this must be an adjective." Sound cool? Let's go to the board.

Mr. E, help me with the class. It's a joke. See, you're the class now and "word class". Anyway. The first one we're going to look at is MENT, m-e-n-t. "Government", "improvement", all right? When we add MENT to the end of a word, it's used to make nouns. So what you'll see is this added to a word becomes a noun. And what does it mean? Well, it means an action or process. Okay? So we talk about government, you think, "Okay, now, it's the people, like the president -- President Obama, President Reagan, Prime Minister Harper." Yeah, I like him. Anyway. Sorry. It's a process. So we talk about government is helping the people. That's what they do when they govern. When we put MENT in, we talk about the institution or the group of people that help the People. Cool? So "governing" the verb means to help the People; "government" is the group of people or institution of people that help the People. That's one example.

[carloseduardonovinho]

I'm from Brazil and I didn't study english before. Now, I believe I will learn english with your lessons, James! Congratulation!!! You're making a great job. =D

[motivationalinflux]

You know what, what I like the most about James? He explain very well, due to this I don't have to watch video again and again.

[Debdebs]

Your lessons are better then what I'm paying for at college. Thanks for the great work, man. Keep it up. 

[estherandherlittleworld]

I'm here cause i want to become an english teacher and i just can't explain grammar, exceptions even though i use. You're amazing!!!

[Anna-fslt]

Thank you so much for creating amazing lessons! I watch them even when I lack of motivation and they inspire to learn again 🙏

[layzaorbit]

Thank you so much, you are helping to understand every grammar in English

[kellycavalcante]

Oh! My gosh! You´re a great, brilliant teacher. I just want to say thank you so much for this banging lesson. Please, keep on good working.

[Kilgore]

TERRIFIC instructional video for my fourth grader....really helped him out a lot. Thanks....keep 'em coming. You're the best.

[Whoscleoo]

2019 here! Love your lessons and thank you for teaching me everything I know (for free hehe) kisses from Brazil! Great job!

[gildardobarrios]

Very good teacher never sleeps when teaching and happy . thank you.

[bosisler]

great lesson, love from Turkey. I'm sure your videos will help me to improve my english

[jcpsinggas]

I love these classes!! James you´re the best!!

[مسيحيةمصرية-رن]

Adding a few letters or goups of letters (List of letters) to change the forms of a rootical mean like - Verb - govern+ ment
Of a type of word mean to an another mean of same mean but to change its form and its type .
Governments.
For nouns it has lists you should save them -
Also for adjs and relatives .

[andyk]

brilliant.  its good the learn.  even at my age .. I wish my daughters teacher was as intellectual as yourself  ...keep it up   ...respect to you

[newmanjohn]

Your video has has a profound impact to me! Thanks James

[nadinezehnder]

Woow i just found you a few minutes ago because i was looking for a youtube video about Noun Endings and i found your account. Damn i love! You are an amazing teacher! And you explained everything really good. Thanks!!

[menkemeijer]

1- thank you for the videos. I got little to no grammar in school thanks to budget cuts and evenin university I continued to struggle with my writing (native speaker here even if I live in Quebec- they teach French just as bad). I tried to get help but they didn't teach me anything, saying my English was good enough- not enough for me! and
2- Love the bowtie!

[NasratArab-njmc]

Well done my dear teacher i appreciate you because of that method. Thank you very much so much

[drn]

You guys from engvid rock! Great videos James, your videos/lessons are cool and funny to watch dude, really enjoyable! Keep it up! Thank you!

[legendsparrow]

Love this guy! Makes the lessons fly by. :)