Collocation

Collocation refers to how words go together or form fixed relationships.

typical collocations	incorrect/untypical collocations
heavy rain	thick rain
high temperature	tall temperature
scenic view	scenic picture
have an experience	do/make an experience

She has blonde hair.

Not: She has beige hair.

She was discharged from hospital.

Not: She was released from hospital.

Collocations may be strong or weak. Strong collocations are where the link between the two words is quite fixed and restricted. Weak collocations are where a word can collocate with many other words.

Compare

strong

make

express +a wish

fulfil

Very few words can collocate with the noun wish. This makes wish a strong collocator.

weak

big+ apartment, beach, car, camera, chance,

disappointment, fight, gun, lamp, moon, news,

ocean, pain, pity, price, queue, table, umbrella,

upset, wait, window

big can collocate with hundreds of words, therefore it’s a weak collocator.

Strong collocations

whisk an egg	curly hair
winding road	blissfully ignorant

Weak collocations

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 part of vocabulary learning. All languages have a large number of collocating words. A good dictionary will help you and dictionaries of collocations are also available.

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