Mini
English lessons
In today's Mini English lesson, I'm going to teach you something that will make you sound
more natural, more informal, and, will help you to understand native speakers better.
Let's look at delexicalised verbs.
Delexicalized verbs are some of the most common verbs used in English.
Make
Do
Go
Get
Take
and have.
You'll notice that these verbs tend to be irregular. They combine with nouns
to create idiomatic expressions like collocations.
What makes delexicalized verbs different to other verbs?
The key is in the name. De-lexical-ised.
Delexicalised
The important part of the meaning is
taken out of the verb and put into the noun.
Let's look at an example.
I took a shower this morning
The verb take doesn't really mean anything in this sentence. The meaning is in the key words, "shower"
and "this morning". We can also add adjectives in there to give extra meaning.
The verb is just there to give sentence structure.
I took a cold shower this morning.
I took a warm shower this morning.
Be aware that some people call delexicalised verbs
hot verbs, empty verbs, or light verbs as well.
If you're thinking, "this doesn't seem so hard," let's
see where the challenge lies.
The tricky part is in the sheer number of collocations.
Take the verb get for instance.
Get married.
Get divorced.
Get angry.
Get upset.
Get a jumper.
Get a drink.
Get ready!
How can you learn them? Well don't try to learn just words, try to learn chunks of language.
For example, don't learn "dinner," learn:
Have dinner with my friends.
Have dinner at 9pm.
Make dinner for my family.
Learning phrases like this will help you to express yourself
and boost your confidence.
Now I need to,
take a shower,
make some dinner,
and go out!