Improve your Fluency with Collocations

One of the best ways to increase your fluency is by learning and using collocations in your everyday life.  

What are collocations? 

Collocation are words that often go together in English. Native English speakers automatically use these words with each other because they sound "just right." 

For example, native speakers  always say a tall building NOT a high building. They also    throw a party. They don't make a party. They do homework rather than make homework

Whenever we hear someone using  words that DON'T seem to go together, we  automatically think it sounds "wrong," not English.

Using the "right" combination is more about sounding natural than about being 
understood. When you use two or three words together in a different way than we do, we might understand you, but you sound "strange", " wrong" or unnatural. We know right away that you are an ESL speaker who is not really comfortable with the language. 

The Expression "Awkward" in Your Writing   

I'm sure that many of your teachers have handed back compositions with the expression "awkward" written on top of your sentences.  Each time this happens, your teachers really mean that a native speaker would NOT use these words together.  They are not fluent.
The message is that you need to go back and rewrite your sentences in a way that sounds English.

Awkward English vs Normal Collocations 

Un-Natural English	Natural English
Someone has a high education	Someone is well-educated, has a good education or is well-educated
replaceable resources.	renewable resources
learn knowledge	acquire or gain knowledge , OR even better  just learn.
Support my living	make a living, support my family
Grow up children	raise children

What are the advantages of learning collocations?   

• The most important advantage is that you will immediately sound more natural and fluent  and we will understand you much better
• Research has proven that our brain learns and remembers language much better if it you learn it in chunks, or groups of words than if you only learn and try to remember single words.
• You are much more likely to use new vocabulary if you know how to use it with more than one other word.
• You will be able to express yourself in more ways with a richer and more expressive vocabulary.  That means your writing will improve dramatically. 
• You will feel more confident about your speaking and writing, which means you will want to speak and write more often than you used to.  As you know, this will help you improve even faster. 

Let's take the word " lack" for example. This is a very useful word to learn, remember and actively use because it means " not have" or "don't have." 

   If you just learn the word and its meaning, without every  learning what other words you can use it with, you will probably forget it right after your vocabulary test. it will be easy to forget.

But, if you learn that the word lack can be used with many other words, you might begin to use it.  Take a look at the graphic on your left. We can use the verb lack with all those nouns.  

I will discuss types of collocations and how you can learn them in my next post. In the meantime, let's look at two verbs that often cause problems. 

Do and Make

Non-native speakers often confuse the verbs do and make.  Although their meanings are similar, there ARE  differences. We can't simply interchange them. 


Do for activities. 
Use the verb do to express daily activities or jobs. Notice that these are usually activities that do NOT product a physical object.

• do housework
• do homework 
• do the dishes

Do for general ideas  . 
Use the verb do when speaking about things in general and you are not specifically naming an activity.   We often use this expression with  "something, nothing, anything, everything." 

•  What did you do today? 
• What do you do? =  What is your job? your occupation? 
• The storm did a lot a damage.
• I  haven't done anything all day. I need to get busy. 
• I hope you do well on the exam. 

 "Make" for Creating, Building  We use make to express the idea of creating something  This  can be something we can touch or feel, or it can be a concept or idea. 

• make a cake
• make a bed 
• make friends 
• make a mistake
• make a suggestion  

 Collocations with with DO and MAKE 

Make

Do

a difference                      a cake  a mistake                         trouble an effort to                       a suggestion an attempt(to)                  a mess friends with                      money  a promise                        a deal with/ to   progress                          a fuss about    an offer                            an excuse for fun of                               a mess a decision to/about          a face  noise                                a date                 arrangements with/.to      money        sure of something            room (for)      appointment  to/for           a date (with)      an excuse for                    a fuss   (about)  the most of (something)   sense  it clear that                        love                   the most of something                       the best of (something)   it clear to/ that     (a, any, no difference) to                         a fuss about

business  (with)       nothing something                a favour (for) everything                 research               homework                housework the dishes                the shopping         damage/ harm(to)   the laundry drugs                     an experiment          a project                  a puzzle   your hair                  your nails overtime                  an activity  time in prison           a poll/ a survey   an exercise            something over                                                do your best  do your duty   do well/ do badly do the right thing    do a bad/ good job

Practice make and do with the following quiz.

Collocations Quiz # 2: Make or Do

For more lists of collocations and quizzes go to the VOCABULARY PAGE.  and scroll down to the collocations section. .

If you liked this post, and would like more of this kind of practice, please leave a comment.

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Improve Your Writing: Don't Translate

If you really want really to improve your writing, stop thinking in your own language and translating the words into English.

I know this seems like an impossible task, and if you are at the beginner or intermediate level, you will have a lot of problems doing this.

But, if you are at an advanced level, you absolutely MUST force yourself to think in English when you are speaking or writing -  even if the words and ideas seem too simple when you do.

I know that many of you don't believe me. You feel that that if you think in your own language and then translate your thoughts into English, your ideas will appear to be more sophisticated and thoughtful than if you only think in English.

Unfortunately, you are completely wrong.  Your method will never work. No matter how much you want this to be true, you are just fooling yourself.

The reality is that if you continue to think in your own language and translate into English, your writing will remain just as bad as it is now, no matter how long you practice. .

Translation doesn't work

Translation simply does not work. Many English words and expressions simply do not translate or even exist in your language, and many of your words and expressions cannot be translated into English. As well, the basic sentence structure, word order and even basic grammar is often completely different.

When you use the Russian, Korean, Chinese, Farsi or Spanish way of expressing yourself, the words themselves might be English, and the sentence structure may look English - especially if you see sentences that seem to have subjects and verbs, but the meaning will be either funny, confusing or both.

Sometimes, your ideas might make some sense if the reader really tries hard to understand what you are trying to say. But, they won't sound English.  They will read and sound like exactly like what they are: a group of awkward sentences that are " sort of" English, Chinglish, Spanglish, Koringlish, etc.

Unfortunately, most of the time your ideas will simply come across as English word salad. - a confusing group  of words that happen to be English.

How to Help Yourself Think in English

There are several ways you can learn to stop translating when you write. They all involve practice, and they all involve not giving up after the first few attempts.

• Practice rapid writing every single day.  By this I mean write about any topic that comes into your head for 10 solid minutes without stopping to lift your pencil off the paper. If you do this, you will not have time to stop and think in your own language and then translate.  If you continue doing this, you will eventually naturally start thinking in English. You will still make mistakes, but at least your sentences will be English sentences. 

• Speak out loud when you write in English. Start at the sentence level, especially if you are simply doing grammar exercises that require complete sentences. In this way, you are training your brain to hear and understand English phrasing. You are also subconsciously teaching yourself correct English sentence structure by using four parts of your body instead of two: your eyes, your hands, your ears, and your mouth.

• Then, start saying the words and sentences in your paragraphs essays out loud AS you write. As soon as you find yourself switching back to thinking in Chinese, or Spanish, Korean or Russian, stop yourself immediately.  Go back to the English. Listen to how your words sound. They won't sound perfect, but if you are at the advanced level, you will certainly know if your sentence sounds English or not - especially if doesn't make sense.

 

• If you are at home, you can speak as loudly as you want. If you are in class, mumble or whisper. The point is to prevent yourself from thinking in your language. When you speak the words and sentence structure in English, you will NOT be translating.  When you catch  

A Successful Method:  
 

I know this method sound crazy, but believe me, it works. I've been teaching students how to write in English for almost 20 years, and those who actually try this method and continue to use it improve dramatically.

The most important point to remember about this method is not to give up too soon. Accept that you WILL feel uncomfortable and even a little embarrassed at first. Most of us normally don't like to hear ourselves think. 

But, there IS a reward. Once you get used to the idea, it will seem quite natural.  The real pay off is that you will have found a way to stop yourself from translating.

As you become more comfortable thinking in English and using it automatically when you write, you will also notice a much greater degree of fluency emerging in  your speaking,  listening and even reading.  Why? This is because you will have finally accepted that your own language and  English are two separate things and should be used separately.

It's all about attitude:

Once you accept that it pays to think in English when you need to, you will find that your are improving more quickly than you thought you could.  You will have adopted the attitude that all good language learners require to truly enjoy and master the new language.