6 Minute Vocabulary - Prefixes re-, pre- and pro-

This is the BBC . This podcast is supported by advertising outside the . This is a download from BBC Learning English to find out more . Visit our website . Six minutes from BBC Learning English . Hello and welcome to Six Minute Vocabulary . I'm Catherine , and I'm . You know , Catherine , six minute vocabulary is great because you can listen to each program again and again , you can you can reuse them . You can . And the word reuse is a clue to today's topic . It is . We're talking about prefixes . Those are the two or three letters that we can add to the beginning of words to change their meaning , like re in reuse . Yeah , we'll tell you more about Relator and we'll also tell you about the prefixes pre and We'll explain what all three prefixes mean and give you lots of examples . There'll be a quiz at the end and a top tip for learning vocabulary . But first , let's hear from Katie . She's an environmental campaigner . While you listen , try to answer this question . What do teachers do with cereal boxes ? Here's Katie . Most food in supermarkets nowadays is prepacked in plastic and cardboard . This creates so much waste . Takeaways and precooked meals also use a lot of packaging . We have to re-educate people to cook for themselves so they don't just reheat meals . And people really need to become more proactive in recycling materials . Teachers in preschool are great at this . They reuse cereal boxes to make fantastic models of robots and spaceships with the kids . So we asked you , what do teachers do with cereal boxes ? And the answer is they reuse them to make models of robots and spaceships . That's right . They make something new with the boxes . But instead of saying they use the boxes again , Katie said the word reuse . Now the prefix spelled r e in front of a word means again . So re plus use means use again . We also had re plus cycling , which also means to use again . Listen out for more words with in this clip . We have to re-educate people to cook for themselves so they don't just reheat meals to use the word re-educate . That's ri , which means again educate . So re-educate means educate again . And in this case re-educate means teach people to behave in a different way so they start to cook for themselves . Another word with was reheat . That's RI plus heat making reheat which means heat again . Good . Let's have another clip now , see if you can spot a different prefect's . Most food in supermarkets nowadays is prepacked in plastic and cardboard . Takeaways and pre cooked meals also use a lot of packaging . We heard Prepacked and Precooked both start with pre spelt p r e which means before or already . So a lot of the food in supermarkets is already packed in cardboard and plastic . It's packed and you can buy meals that have been made and cooked before you buy them . Pre plus cooked means already cooked . And the children Katie talked about were in preschool . So that's pre plus school , that's preschool . It's a place where children go before they go to proper school . So that's real and pre . Now let's talk about pro spelled p r o . Katie said people need to be more proactive in recycling pro means in support of or in favor of something . So being proactive , pro plus active in recycling means making more effort to recycle things . Neil , are you a proactive recycler ? Yeah , well , we've got two bins , one for recycling , one for all the food . So I suppose I am very good . Now , another word with the prefix pro that is used a lot when talking about food is probiotic . Probiotics are good bacteria that help to keep you healthy . Oh , you're listening to BBC Learning English . And we're talking about the prefixes and pro , I know for a quiz , number one , which prefix goes before the word school to make the word for a place for very young children ? Is it A three , B three or C pro ? And the answer is B pre . It's preschool . Good number two . What would you do with a ready made meal ? Would you A , pre-heat it , B reheat it or C Crozet it . And the answer is B that's reheated . Great . On number three , if you want to improve your English , should you be A reactive , B proactive or C proactive when you're learning new words and the answer is C it's pro . That's proactive and that's the end of the quiz . Well done . If you got them right . And now here's today's top tip for learning vocabulary . Try to group new words by their prefixes . This will help you to remember their meaning . There's more about this at ABC Learning English dot com . Join us again for more six minute vocabulary by .