invaluable和valuable意思相反？搞錯(cuò)可就尷尬了！

In many words, IN- means the opposite or “not”:

在很多單詞里，IN-前綴都是相反的或“不”的意思：

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inconsistent = NOT consistent 不一致的

insufficient = NOT sufficient 不足的

independent = NOT dependent 獨(dú)立的，不依賴的

incorrect = NOT correct 錯(cuò)誤的，不正確的

However, there are some exceptions that might be confusing

但其實(shí)并不是所有的詞都是這樣，也是有例外的

If something is valuable, it means it is worth a lot of money, or is very important. A gold necklace is valuable – it might cost $1,000.

如果某物是valuable，意思是它值很多錢，或者非常重要。一條金項(xiàng)鏈很值錢——可能要1000美元。

You might imagine that invaluable means “not valuable” – but that’s not true! The word invaluable means extremely valuable; the value is so great that it is impossible to measure. A unique and famous painting like the Mona Lisa is invaluable.

你可能自然而然地就認(rèn)為invaluable的意思是沒有價(jià)值，但事實(shí)并非如此!Invaluable的意思是極其貴重的;它的價(jià)值是如此之大，以致于無法衡量。像《蒙娜麗莎》這樣獨(dú)一無二，舉世無雙的畫作是無價(jià)的。

You can also describe non-physical things as invaluable – for example, if someone gave you advice that drastically changed your life for the better, you could say that their advice was invaluable – it was SO valuable and SO important that it’s impossible to measure how much it was worth.

你也可以把非物質(zhì)的東西描述為無價(jià)之寶，例如，如果有人給你的建議徹底改變了你的生活，你可以說他們的建議是無價(jià)之寶——它是如此貴重并且重要以至于無法去衡量它的價(jià)值。

valuable / vælj?b(?)l/ adj. 貴重的;有價(jià)值的;可估價(jià)的

invaluable /?n vælj?(?)b(?)l/ adj. 無法估計(jì)的, 非常寶貴的

The adjective famous describes someone or something that a lot of people know about.

形容詞famous描述的是很多人都知道的人或事。

Does infamous mean the opposite, “not famous”? No! Infamous means being famous for a BAD reason. For example, a criminal who has robbed 10 big banks would be an infamous bank robber – a lot of people know about him, but it’s because of something negative, because of his bad behavior.

那infamous就是它的反義詞“不出名”的意思嗎?不是!Infamous的意思是因?yàn)椴缓玫脑蚨雒?。例如，一個(gè)搶劫了10家大銀行的罪犯會(huì)是一個(gè)臭名昭著的銀行搶劫犯——很多人都知道他，但這是因?yàn)橐恍┴?fù)面的東西，因?yàn)樗膲男袨椤?/p>

A person is infamous when they have a very bad reputation that is known by a lot of people. We can also use this word for things that are not people.

當(dāng)一個(gè)人有很多人都知道的壞名聲時(shí)，他就是臭名昭著的。我們也可以用這個(gè)詞來形容非人類的事物。

If there’s a city that has terrible traffic all the time, we can talk about the infamous traffic jams there – again, well-known for a bad reason.

如果有一個(gè)城市的交通一直很糟糕，我們可以說那里有臭名昭著的交通狀況，由于眾所周知的一個(gè)壞事情而被周知。

famous / fe?m?s/ adj. 著名的;[口]極好的，非常令人滿意的

infamous / ?nf?m?s/ adj. 無恥的;聲名狼藉的;邪惡的;不名譽(yù)的

Note that there’s a pronunciation difference as well:

注意一下這兩個(gè)詞發(fā)音上的不同：

FA-mous (“a” like in “name”, stress on “FA”)

a像是name里a的發(fā)音，重音在fa

IN-fa-mous (“a” sounds like “uh”, stress on “IN”)

a像是uh的發(fā)音，比較輕，重音在in