Improve your Fluency with Collocations

One of the best ways to increase your fluency is by learning and using collocations in your everyday life.  

What are collocations? 

Collocation are words that often go together in English. Native English speakers automatically use these words with each other because they sound "just right." 

For example, native speakers  always say a tall building NOT a high building. They also    throw a party. They don't make a party. They do homework rather than make homework

Whenever we hear someone using  words that DON'T seem to go together, we  automatically think it sounds "wrong," not English.

Using the "right" combination is more about sounding natural than about being 
understood. When you use two or three words together in a different way than we do, we might understand you, but you sound "strange", " wrong" or unnatural. We know right away that you are an ESL speaker who is not really comfortable with the language. 

The Expression "Awkward" in Your Writing   

I'm sure that many of your teachers have handed back compositions with the expression "awkward" written on top of your sentences.  Each time this happens, your teachers really mean that a native speaker would NOT use these words together.  They are not fluent.
The message is that you need to go back and rewrite your sentences in a way that sounds English.

Awkward English vs Normal Collocations 

Un-Natural English	Natural English
Someone has a high education	Someone is well-educated, has a good education or is well-educated
replaceable resources.	renewable resources
learn knowledge	acquire or gain knowledge , OR even better  just learn.
Support my living	make a living, support my family
Grow up children	raise children

What are the advantages of learning collocations?   

• The most important advantage is that you will immediately sound more natural and fluent  and we will understand you much better
• Research has proven that our brain learns and remembers language much better if it you learn it in chunks, or groups of words than if you only learn and try to remember single words.
• You are much more likely to use new vocabulary if you know how to use it with more than one other word.
• You will be able to express yourself in more ways with a richer and more expressive vocabulary.  That means your writing will improve dramatically. 
• You will feel more confident about your speaking and writing, which means you will want to speak and write more often than you used to.  As you know, this will help you improve even faster. 

Let's take the word " lack" for example. This is a very useful word to learn, remember and actively use because it means " not have" or "don't have." 

   If you just learn the word and its meaning, without every  learning what other words you can use it with, you will probably forget it right after your vocabulary test. it will be easy to forget.

But, if you learn that the word lack can be used with many other words, you might begin to use it.  Take a look at the graphic on your left. We can use the verb lack with all those nouns.  

I will discuss types of collocations and how you can learn them in my next post. In the meantime, let's look at two verbs that often cause problems. 

Do and Make

Non-native speakers often confuse the verbs do and make.  Although their meanings are similar, there ARE  differences. We can't simply interchange them. 


Do for activities. 
Use the verb do to express daily activities or jobs. Notice that these are usually activities that do NOT product a physical object.

• do housework
• do homework 
• do the dishes

Do for general ideas  . 
Use the verb do when speaking about things in general and you are not specifically naming an activity.   We often use this expression with  "something, nothing, anything, everything." 

•  What did you do today? 
• What do you do? =  What is your job? your occupation? 
• The storm did a lot a damage.
• I  haven't done anything all day. I need to get busy. 
• I hope you do well on the exam. 

 "Make" for Creating, Building  We use make to express the idea of creating something  This  can be something we can touch or feel, or it can be a concept or idea. 

• make a cake
• make a bed 
• make friends 
• make a mistake
• make a suggestion  

 Collocations with with DO and MAKE 

Make

Do

a difference                      a cake  a mistake                         trouble an effort to                       a suggestion an attempt(to)                  a mess friends with                      money  a promise                        a deal with/ to   progress                          a fuss about    an offer                            an excuse for fun of                               a mess a decision to/about          a face  noise                                a date                 arrangements with/.to      money        sure of something            room (for)      appointment  to/for           a date (with)      an excuse for                    a fuss   (about)  the most of (something)   sense  it clear that                        love                   the most of something                       the best of (something)   it clear to/ that     (a, any, no difference) to                         a fuss about

business  (with)       nothing something                a favour (for) everything                 research               homework                housework the dishes                the shopping         damage/ harm(to)   the laundry drugs                     an experiment          a project                  a puzzle   your hair                  your nails overtime                  an activity  time in prison           a poll/ a survey   an exercise            something over                                                do your best  do your duty   do well/ do badly do the right thing    do a bad/ good job

Practice make and do with the following quiz.

Collocations Quiz # 2: Make or Do

For more lists of collocations and quizzes go to the VOCABULARY PAGE.  and scroll down to the collocations section. .

If you liked this post, and would like more of this kind of practice, please leave a comment.

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