COLLOCATIONS

WHAT IS A COLLOCATION

A collocation is a pair or group of words

that are often used together. These
combinations soun natural to native
speakers, but students of English have
to make a special effort to learn them because
they are often difficult to guess. Some combinations
just sound “wrong” to native speakers of English. For example, the adjective
fast collocates with cars, but not with a glance.
 WHY LEARNING COLLOCATIONS
Learning collocations is a good idea because they can:
a. Give you the most natural way to say something: smoking is strictly
forbbiden is more natural tan smoking is strongly forbidden.
b. Give you alternative ways of saying something, which may be more
colourful/expressive or more precise: instead of repeating “It was
very cold and very dark”, we can say “It was bitterly cold and pitch
dark”.
c. Improve your stile in writing: instead of saying porverty causes
crime, you can say poverty breeds crime.
 LEARNING COLLOCATIONS
Learning collocations is not so different from learning any vocabulary
ítem. The key things are to:
- Regularly revise what you want to learn.
- Practice using what you want to learn.
- Learn collocations in groups to help you fix them in your memory.
 TYPES OF COLLOCATIONS

Adjectives and nouns

adjectives that are typically used with particular nouns. Bright
color, brief chat, major problema, key issue, are just some of them.

Nouns and verbs

Nouns comes with verbs: company has grown, economy
boomed, companies merged, launched the product, poses a problem
 TYPES OF COLLOCATIONS
Noun + noun
a lot of collocations with the pattern: a … of …: a surge of anger
(a sudden angry feeling), a sense of pride, a pang of nostalgia (a feeling
of nostalgia).

Verbs and expressions with prepositions

verbs + prepositional expressions: … parents swelling with pride
(looking extremely proud), filled with horror, the little girl burst into
tears.
 TYPES OF COLLOCATIONS
Verbs and adverbs
Some verbs with particular adverbs: She pulled steadly on the
rope (pulled firmly), He placed the beautiful base gently on the
window ledge, Derek whispered softly to Marsha. She smiled proudly
as she looked at the photos.

Adverbs and adjectives

Adverbs + adjectives: they are happily married, I am fully aware
that there are serious problems (know well), Harry was blissfully
unaware that was in danger (no idea at all).
 EXERCISES
1.1 Make ten collocations from the words in the box

an effort ancient bitterly make breakfast old tv

dark engine forbidden mistakes have make watch
meal monument pitch powerful strictly substantial
 EXERCISES
1.2 Are these statements about collocations true or false?
1. learning collocations will make your English sound more
natural.
2. learning collocations will help you to express yourself in a
variety of ways.
3. learning collocations will help you to write better English.
4. using collocations properly will get you better marks in exams.
5 you will not be understood unles you use collocations properly
 EXERCISES

1.3 Underline the collocations in this text

When I left university I made a decisión to take u p a profession in
which I could be creative. I could play the guitar, but I’d never written any
songs. Nonetheless I decided to become a Singer-songwriter. I made some
recordings but I had a rather heavy cold so they didn’t sound good. I made
some more, and sent them to a record company and waited for them to
reply.
So, while I was waiting to become famous, I got a job in a fast-food
restaurant. That was five years ago. I’m still doing the same job.
 KEY
1.1
Make mistakes

Powerful engine
Have breakfast
Make an effort
Watch tv
Ancient monument
Substantial meal
Bitterly cold
Pitch dark
Strictly forbidden
Other posible collocations: make breakfast, substantial breakfast
 KEY

1.2 The first four statements are all true. The final statement is
probably not true. You may well be understood if you use less natural
collocations but you will not sound as you probably wish to sound.
 KEY
1.3. Boldface the collocations in this text
When I left university I made a decision to take up a profession
in which I could be creative. I could play the guitar, but I’d never
written any songs. Nonetheless I decided to become a Singer-
songwriter. I made some recordings but I had a rather heavy cold so
they didn’t sound good. I made some more, and sent them to a record
company and waited for them to reply.
So, while I was waiting to become famous, I got a job in a fast-food
restaurant. That was five years ago. I’m still doing the same job.