This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. This is a download from BBC Learning English to find out more. Visit our website. Six minutes per capita from BBC Learning English. Hello and welcome to Six Minute Vocabulary. I'm Catherine, and I'm Neil. You know, Catherine, six minute vocabulary is great because you can listen to each program again and again, you can hear 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 ro.

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 re 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 RI 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 RI 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 respray 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 ri 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.