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Collocations

"You shall know a word by the company it keeps."J.R. Firth (189019!0

What is a collocation?Collocations are common word combinations, words that often go togetherthat just sound "right" to native English speakers, who use them all the time,

such as bri#ht idea, talk $reely.

Why learn collocations?(Its all advantages!)- You will be more natural and easily understood.- You will have alternative and richer ways of epressing yourself.- You will epress yourself as a native speaker and that!s the whole point,right- #t is easier for our brains to remember and use language in chunks orblocks rather than as single words.

- if you are getting yourself ready for an English eam, collocations mightmake the difference between passing ot or not.

How to learn collocations.- $e aware of collocations, and try to recogni%e them when you see or hearthem.- &reat collocations as single blocks of language. &hink of them as individualblocks or chunks, and learn strongly support, not strongly ' support.- (hen you learn a new word, write down other words that collocate with it

)remember rightly, remember distinctly, remember vaguely, remembervividly*.

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- +ead as much as possible. +eading is an ecellent way to learn vocabularyand collocations in contet and naturally.- +evise what you learn regularly. ractise using new collocations in contetas soon as possible after learning them.- earn collocations in groups that work for you. You could learn them by

topic )time, number, weather, money, family* or by a particular word )takeaction, take a chance, take an eam*.- You can find information on collocations in any good learners dictionary./nd you can also find speciali%ed dictionaries of collocations.

Strong and weak collocations.#f we look deeper into collocations, we find that not only do the words "gotogether" but there is a degree of predictability in their association.0enerally, in any collocation, one word will "call up" another word in the mindof a native speaker. #n other words, if # give you one word, you can predictthe other word, with varying degrees of success. &his predictability is not1223, but it is always much higher than with non-collocates. #t depends onhow fre4uent5infre4uent the colllocation is.

- &he predictability may be strong for eample with "auspicious" as itcollocates with very few words6

auspicious occasion.

auspicious moment.auspicious event.

- $ut the predictability may be weak with for eample, "circuit" as itcollocates with more than 72 words6

circuit collocates.racing circuit .lecture circuit.

closed circuit.integrated circuit.printed circuit.circuit breaker.circuit training.circuit judge.

Types of collocations.&hey can be 8grammatical collocations9 or 8leical collocations96- / 8grammatical collocation9 contains a noun5verb5 adjective plus a

preposition or a particular form of the verb )-ing or infinitive*.

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:erb ' reposition6 depend on );