逍遥学能 2010-05-17 00:50
一、根据释义猜测词义
在有些文章中，某些生词的词义在下文中可以得到解释或说明。这些解释有时以定义、定语从句、同位语形式出现；有时用破折号、括号、冒号、引号等符号引出；还有时用that is,or,that is to say,in other words等次引出。例如：
1.Anthropology is the scientific study of man.有定义可知，anthropology就是“研究人类的科学”，由此可推出anthropology是“人类学”。
2.He takes a special interest in botany which concerns the study of plants.根据定语从句中which concerns the study of plants可知botany是“植物学”。
3.Capacitance,the ability to store electric charge,is one of the most common characteristics of electronic circuits.由同位语我们可以很快猜出生词capacitance的词义——————电容量。
4.The doctor was on the night-shift—from midnight to 8 o'clock.这里night-shift的意思可以由破折号后面的内容猜出，意思是“夜班”。
5.They are vertebrates,that is,animals that have backbones.这里vertebrates的意思可以由that is后面的内容猜出，意思是“脊椎动物”。
二、通过下文所举的例子猜测词义
在有些文章中，下文所举的例子给读者提供了猜测生词的重要线索。例如：
Generally,we like to read periodicals,such as Time Magazine,Newsweek,Reader’sDigest,etc.根据后面所举的例子可以推断出periodicals的意思是“期刊”。
三、根据词语之间的对等关系猜测词义
以The hot tropical weather creafed a feeling of lassitude and encouraged laziness.这个句子为例，此句中的and连接并列成分created a feeling of lassitude和encouraged laziness。Created与encouraged对应，而lassitude与laziness,由此我们可以推断lassitude的大概意思是“困乏，无力，无精打采”。
四、根据对比、转折关系猜测词义
以If you agree, write “Yes”;if you dissent,write “No”.为例，这里前后对比分明，前句表示肯定，后句表示否定，我们由此可以推断出dissent与agree意思相反，意思应是“不同意，不赞成‘。
再如：Mr Green always is punctual for everything,but for some reason he was late for an important meeting last week.我们根据but后面的内容he was late,可以知道punctual的意思与其相反，由此推出punctual的意思就是“守时的，准时的“。
因此，同学们在阅读时，要注意常见的表示转折的意义的词，如：but,however,though,otherwise,on the other hand 等。
五、根据因果关系猜测词义
Mary didn’t notice me when I came into the classroom,because she was completely engrossed in her reading.句意：当我走进教室的时候，玛丽没有注意到我，因为她正在——地看书。据此，我们可以推断engross可能就是“使全神贯注，吸引”的意思。
再如：There were so many demonstrators in Red Square that he had to elbow his way through the crowd.此句为结果状语从句，根据从句的描述“so many demonstrators”和“crowd”，我们便可推知elbow的词意为“挤，挤过”。
常见的表示因果关系的词有：because,since,as,so,so---that,such---that等。
六、根据同义词的替代关系猜测它在句子或段落中的意思，我们也可以利用熟悉的词语，根据语言环境推断生词词义。
例如：Although he often had the opportunity,Mr Tritt was never able to steal money from a customer.This would have endangered his position at the bank, and he did not want to jeoperdize his future.作者为避免重复使用endanger一词，用其同义词jeoperdize来替代，由此可推知其词义为“使------陷入危险，危及，危害”。