Understanding Collocations: Types and Examples
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Collocation refers to how words naturally go together or form fixed relationships. Typical Collocations: Correct: heavy rain Incorrect: thick rain Correct: high temperature Incorrect: tall temperature Correct: scenic view Incorrect: scenic picture Correct: have an experience Incorrect: do/make an experience Correct: She has blonde hair. Incorrect: She has beige hair. Correct: She was discharged from the hospital. Incorrect: She was released from the hospital. Strong Collocations: Strong collocations are where the connection between the words is fixed and restricted. Examples: whisk an egg curly hair winding road blissfully ignorant Weak Collocations: Weak collocations are where a word can collocate with many other words. Examples: big/enormous/large + house/lorry/cup fast/shiny/expensive + car/motorbike/aeroplane very/really/extremely + interesting/hot/generous brown/straight/long + fence/hair/line Becoming aware of collocations is an important part of vocabulary learning. In all languages, there are many words …