The importance of collocations In terms of use, acquisition, and ultimate progress in language learning and translation, collocation is much more important. One-tenth of our time in a vocabulary presentation should be spent on defining a meaning, and the remainder should be spent on collocation and usage. Second language learners often rely on their native language in trying to communicate or translate. They assume that there always exists a one-to-one correspondence between L1 and L2 lexical items. This strategy may be of some help to the learner at the beginning levels of language learning, but it is also a major cause of errors because even equivalent lexical items do not always convey the same sense in two languages for various reasons, including cultural differences which are reflected in the vocabulary of every language. This false assumption causes the learners to make collocational errors.
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Sample Collocations adverb + adjective Invading that country was an utterly stupid thing to do. We entered a richly decorated room. adjective + noun The doctor ordered him to take regular exercise . The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage . noun + noun The ceasefire agreement came into effect at 11am. I'd like to buy two bars of soap please. noun + verb The lion started to roar when it heard the dog barking . The bomb went off when he started the car engine. verb + noun The prisoner was hanged for committing murder . I always try to do my homework in the morning, after making my bed . verb + expression with preposition At first her eyes filled with horror , and then she burst into tears . Their behaviour was enough to drive anybody to crime . verb + adverb She placed her keys gently on the table and sat down. I ...
Why learn collocations? Your speech will sound more normal and will be easier to understand. You'll be able to articulate yourself in new and more varied ways. English in bits or blocks is easier for our minds to remember and use than single sentences. How to learn collocations? Be aware of collocations, and try to recognize them when you see or hear them. Treat collocations as if they were single words. See them as separate blocks or chunks, and learn to strongly support rather than strongly + support. When you hear a new phrase, make a list of other words that are similar to it. You can find information on collocations in any good learner's dictionary. And you can also find specialized dictionaries of collocations.
General concept A collocation is a collection of words or phrases that co-occur more often than would be predicted by chance in corpus linguistics. Collocation is a sub-type of phraseme in phraseology. The word "strong tea" is an example of a phraseological collocation. Although the nearly equivalent strong tea could communicate the same sense, English speakers consider this word to be repetitive and uncomfortable.