hello and welcome back I'm Halima from blackboard English and
today we're going to look at collocations watch until the end of the
video for your a chance to download a free poster that will help you with
collocations let's begin with the first question what is a collocation so
collocations are words that go together that sound natural to native speakers
who are native speakers where are they so native speakers are people who learn
English as their first language so it's their mother tongue and two native
speakers some word combinations might sound a little weird or it doesn't sound
right so some word combinations sound unnatural to native speakers and these
are the word combinations you should be avoiding so these are words that don't
go together they're not wrong but they just don't go together because they
sound unnatural to native speakers so if you want to sound natural start using
collocations let's talk about words that don't go together why don't they go
together let's think of colors there are certain colors that don't go together
very well you don't know why but they just don't look good together so this
isn't how you know if they're wrong they just don't go together they don't look
good together so colors that do look to get together all collocations for
example black and white these are colors that go very well together
so colors that go together are like collocations so they look good together
so beige and brown or black and white these are colors that look nice together
but if you have other colors that just don't go very well together
they don't look right so what they are like they invented by somebody that is
just learning English will sound very strange to someone who is a native
speaker of English let me give you another example water with cornflakes
this is something that just doesn't go together we don't know why with milk
it's great but with water it just tastes weird
so consider words that don't go well together as conflicts and milk or colors
that don't go together if you learn collocations they will help you sound
natural and that's what you want you want to sound natural
so start learning collocations they will help you structure the language properly
so that when somebody else listens to what you're saying they can understand
you better your language skills will also be of richer and you'll have more
than one way to express what you want to say another reason you should be
learning collocations is your brain actually finds it easier to store
language in chunks so if you learn single words it's actually harder to
retrieve to remember or when you're trying to say it it's harder for you to
try to communicate single words rather than groups of words so remember when
you're learning new words to learn in chunks so group of words so instead of
one word you find another word a neighbor that always sticks around that
word often so that way when I'm trying to speak I'm already setting myself up
for success I already have part of the sentence so that way your language will
be much more accurate so how do you learn collocations first thing you need
is to know the different dictionaries that you can use so find all the
dictionaries I have a few videos talking about collocation dictionary you can use
Ozdic.com or Longman dictionary which has a very
good collocation section I have videos in the description below talking about
these two different types of dictionaries so you can have a look
after this lesson it's also worth getting a dictionary
that you can actually use so a dictionary without you having to go
online a good dictionary that I always recommend is a longing collocations
dictionary and thesaurus I will put a link in the description below to an
Amazon link where you can actually find this book if you would like to buy it
start noticing collocations being used everywhere so when somebody's speaking
or when you're reading try to start noticing the different words that go
together read read read read as much as you can this is the best way for you to
actually see how these words are formed so you can see the collocations being
used in a newspaper or in an article online or in a book try to read as much
as possible this will allow your brain to understand what words go together
frequently so you see it again and again together that way when you see it in the
wrong form or somebody using it differently you know when it's wrong
listen as much as you can this is another way just like the reading for
you to understand words that go together naturally now when you're listening to
something make sure it's authentic listening so it's made for native
speakers so listen to the radio BBC four is a great way to get that listening
happening ABC 4 is a radio station that can actually help you practice this
listening native speakers are always speaking on there and even if you don't
understand everything it's a great way for you to be exposed to real natural
English there's also different places that
can go online wash YouTube videos that are made for native speakers and not
English learners that way you can you can actually get exposed to real live
English natural English it's okay to watch
English lessons please keep watching when you are learning English so when
you're taking lessons you need a teacher to speak slowly so that you may
understand but you also need authentic listening to improve your English skills
and also for you to be exposed to more collocations so that you can sound a lot
more natural now let's look at types of collocations there are seven types of
collocations they are adverb have adjective verb plus adverb adjectives
plus now now plus noun noun plus verb verb plus expression with preposition +
verb + noun the rest a noun + verb ok if I didn't that's fine
so all these so these are the segments seven types of collocations that exist
to help you I created a poster giving you all the
examples of these different types of collocations so you'll get the type of
collocation and examples I've created a beautiful poster for you and I will put
the link in below this video so click on the link and download your free poster
for you to familiarize yourself with the different types of collocations start
learning collocations today and remember eat a fearless learner thank you very
much for watching my video guys if you found it useful please share it with
your friends and make sure that you like and subscribe to my channel if you
haven't done so already and I'll see you next week with another new video visit
my website and find you need to learn English you can also
join my free Facebook group where you can find other students trying to learn
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link in the description below