VOCABULARY : WORDS COLLOCATION

Hello guys!!. Now in this page I am going to share you about English collocation or word collocation in English. So, have you ever heard about collocation before ?. I think some of you have already known about it. As we know in English, native people use words in combination or in a chunk which is composed of two words that stick together. Sometimes for us English learners, we try to make sentence by combining words which makes them unnatural in English. By learning collocation, you can improve both writing and speaking because your sentence will sound more natural. Learning collocation will also improve your IELTS band scores for writing and speaking, because it is also one of the scoring parameter for lexical resources, besides acedemic vocabularies. To figure out what is the collocation in practical term, let's see the following sentences

Sentence 1
John got a punishment because he did a mistake 

Sentence 2
John got a punishment because he made a mistake

My question is, which one of those two sentences sounds more natural ? The second sentence sounds more natural as it uses word "made" followed by mistake. This is the real example of collocation what I mean. Native speakers do not say do a mistake instead of make a mistake. Another example of word collocation

Sentence 3
It is a general rule of thumb that poverty breeds crime

Sentence 4
It is a general rule of thumb that poverty causes crime

Those two sentences have the same meaning, but if we can see from the sentences, the third sentence uses breeds instead of causes like in the fourth sentence. Native speakers use breeds for poverty and crime. So, in this case, the right answer is sentence 3, It is a general rule of thumb that poverty breeds crime.

The other examples of words collocations are portrayed in the following sentences

Sentence 5
This car has a powerful engine (correct collocation)

Sentence 6
This car has a strong engine (wrong collocation)

Sentence 7
Yesterday, there was a hard rain in Scotland which caused many trees felt in the ground (correct collocation)

Sentence 8
Yesterday, there was a big rain in Scotland which caused many trees felt in the ground (wrong collocation)

To find out more examples of words collocations, especially in every context likes law, environment, sciences, writing, and feeling, you can read excellent book of collocation in English Collocation in Use.

Collocations of Success and Failure

1. Impressive accomplishment
2. Phenomenal success
3. Highly effective
4. Dramatic improvement
5. Unprecedented success
6. Crowning achievement
7. Modest success
8. Room for improvement
9. Make a good progress
10. Fail miserably
11. Completely failed
12. Mediocre performance
13. Remarkable achievements
14. Spectacular failure
15. A recipe for disaster
16. Doomed to failure
17. As a last resort

Resource
Mc Carthy, M., O'Dell, F., English Collocation in Use. Cambridge University Press.