Collocations in Context

Book Synopsis: Have you ever wondered why native English speakers sound so natural and fluent whenever they speak? Is it strictly because of their knowledge of grammar rules? Actually, a major reason why they sound the way they do is because of collocations. These are words that are often used with other words. They sound appropriate or correct to the speakers of the language. This could explain why native English speakers are able to tell a native from a non-native speaker.

Phrasal verbs (verbs + prepositional phrase), such as "break down", "fall off", "turn on", etc. are some examples of collocations; however, not all collocations are phrasal verbs. Other combinations include: adjective + noun, noun+ noun, verb + noun, adverb +adjective, verb + adverb.

In English, we say "break a record", not "crack a record", "bunch of flowers", not "pack of flowers", "distant memory", not "remote memory". In other words, certain word combinations are acceptable while others are not. Understanding and mastering collocations is necessary if you want to learn expressions, especially idioms. Moreover, knowledge of collocations is necessary if you want to pass English language proficiency exams like the IELTS or TOEFL. This is because they will evaluate you on specific criteria like "lexical resource" (IELTS Speaking and Writing), "language use" (TOEFL Speaking) and "word choice" (TOEFL Writing).

In my book, you’ll find plenty of examples of everyday collocations. There are 32 lessons and each one is dedicated to a particular theme or topic. You’ll be exposed to more than 500 collocations and after each lesson, you’ll be able to take a quiz to demonstrate what you’ve learned.