Suffixes: -less and -free
Learning English Vocabulary
BBC
4.5 • 523 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2026
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is this a smoke-free or a smokeless workplace? Learn the difference!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Six Minutes vocabulary from BBC learning English.com. |
| 0:13.5 | Hello and welcome to the six-minute vocabulary. I'm Catherine. |
| 0:16.8 | And I'm Neil. |
| 0:18.3 | Today we're looking at the suffixes less and free. |
| 0:23.7 | Suffixes are two or three letters at the end of a word that affect its meaning. |
| 0:28.9 | We'll look at what the suffixes free and less mean and give you some examples. |
| 0:34.4 | There'll be a quiz. |
| 0:35.5 | And we'll leave you with a top tip for learning vocabulary. |
| 0:41.0 | Let's start by listening to Marcus. He's a politician and he's talking about his party's policies. |
| 0:48.7 | Right. So while you listen, think about this question. Do e-cigarettes produce smoke? Here's Marcus. |
| 0:58.7 | We're focusing on the jobless, the homeless, the sick and the elderly, people who are powerless |
| 1:05.8 | to change things for themselves. We're campaigning for more car-free and smoke-free zones. We're going to |
| 1:13.8 | extend the smoking ban to include e-cigarettes, which may be smokeless, but they aren't harmless. |
| 1:21.4 | And we're going to raise the penalties for careless drivers. So we asked you, do e-cigarettes produce smoke? |
| 1:30.4 | And the answer is, no, they don't. |
| 1:33.2 | E-cigarettes are smokeless. |
| 1:36.8 | And smokeless is a keyword in this program |
| 1:40.0 | because it ends with the suffix less, |
| 1:43.2 | spelt L-E-S-S. |
| 1:46.5 | This means without. |
| 1:48.6 | So smoke-less cigarettes are cigarettes without smoke. |
... |
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