Collocations are important. You cannot learn english without learning collocations! Why?
Well, let me explain.
The first question is, well, what is a collocation? According to Michael Lewis
collocations are "those combinations of words which occur naturally with greater than random
frequency". In simple terms, collocations are words that go together because they do.
Collocations are arbitrary and that means they follow no rules and no logic. And I know
that's not very helpful. For example a person can be tall but not high. You can carry out research
but you can't carry out your homework. A box can be heavy and so can rain but wind can't be heavy.
No. Wind can be strong. Why? I don't know why! No one knows why! So why are you asking me? I'm not
a genius.... I'm just some guy in a room with a camera sweating because it's 33 degrees outside!
Okay!? God! Sometimes words only get their meaning from collocations. For example what does the word
SEE mean? Now you're thinking "Toby I'm not an idiot! I know what SEE means! SEE means to
perceive something with your eyes! That's obvious! I learned that when I was seven!". Well yeah,
okay. You can see a star in the sky for example and here SEE means to perceive something with your
eyes. Sure. But what about "on the weekend I saw a film". Well now SEE means the same as watch What
about "I'm going to see a doctor" Now SEE means visit. What about "I don't see the point". Now SEE
means understand. What about "I lost all control and saw red". The expression to see red means to
become very angry. So in these examples what has changed? The collocation. I'm pretty sure you knew
the word SEE and I'm pretty sure you knew the word RED. However I'm also pretty sure that you did not
know the expression to see red. You didn't know the collocation. Now let's have a look at some
aspects of collocations together. Here is a word: CONVERSATION. Wow. I love a good conversation.
Immediately adjectives come to mind that collocate. We have informal, private, brief,
scintillating and interesting. Now let's have a look at some of these adjectives.
Collocations can be strong or weak. For example interesting conversation is a weak
collocation. This is because the adjective interesting can be used for
a variety of different things and does not necessarily suggest conversation.
You could talk about an interesting book or person or perspective for example.
On the other hand the adjective scintillating is strongly collocated to conversation.
It means very interesting. In fact I cannot think of another noun that would collocate with
scintillating. The adjective scintillating is so strongly collocated that it automatically suggests
conversation. Again remember that collocations are arbitrary and therefore they don't follow rules.
You can talk about a private conversation but if you said "Toby! Let's have a public
conversation!" I would say "I don't know what you're talking about" and that's because public
is not collocated with conversation but private is. But do you know who aren't arbitrary!? Oh
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Bye! Some words are collocated so strongly that they only make sense in a collocation. Take the
expression to run a amok. To run amok means to act in a crazy and disruptive way. For example
"there is a riot in the streets! The protesters are running amok!". To run amok consists of the
verb to run and the adverb amok. The verb to run is collocated with various things. For
example you could run a race, or run a business, or run a website. The point is, the verb to run
makes sense on its own and it makes sense with other words while amok... we don't use this word
outside of the collocation to run amok. Using collocations can also be essential in order to
be understood. For example if by some miracle an incredibly attractive lady approached me and said
"Yo baby do you want to come on an initial date with me?" I would say "I don't know what you mean.
What's an initial date? No idea. Bye!" However if she asked me to go on a FIRST date with her
I would say "Yes please! I would literally cut my arm off just to smell your hair!" ...
If you told me someone had a big accent I would say "I don't know what you're talking about. Is
there a country called big that I don't know about?" However if you told me someone had a
strong accent I would understand and the difference there is the collocation. Collocations
can also make your life easier when you're trying to express yourself. Let me give you an example.
I bought the phone without thinking about it and then when i got home I realized I shouldn't have
bought it and I regretted my decision". This is a lot of language to express a simple idea and
that's a problem because the more grammar you use the more likely you are to make a mistake
and get confused. We often use more grammar to explain something when we don't have the adequate
vocabulary to do so and this is where collocations can help you. Instead of buying something without
thinking too much about it you can buy something on a whim. Easy. Instead of "I realized I should
not have bought it and I regretted my decision" you could say "I felt buyer's remorse".
Our new sentence then is shorter but it's more precise. I bought the phone on a whim and then
when I got home I felt buyer's remorse. Finished. And what helped us do that?
The collocations. So then, you, watching this video, how does this information apply to you?
Remember, do not learn individual words. Instead learn words in groups. Let's imagine that you
learn a new word. You learned the word TELEPHONE. Well what can you do with that new word?
"This is a telephone". Um, "the telephone is white". Well how many times do you think english
people say this is a telephone. You have the word telephone but at this point it's pretty useless
unless you learn the verbs that collocate with telephone. You can't really talk about telephones.
You need to know collocations like to be on the telephone, to answer the telephone, to pick up
the telephone, to hang up the telephone, to put down the telephone, to charge the telephone. You
need to learn these. If you don't know them then what can you possibly say about the telephone?
"This is a telephone.". Wow. That's great. Have fun with that. What about the word CAUTION.
You may know this word. It means "to take great care" but how do we use it in a sentence? Do you
take caution? Or make caution? Or use caution? Or do caution? No you EXERCISE caution.
Again, I am sure that you knew the words exercise and caution but did you know they were collocated?
Probably not. So the solution is not to learn the words exercise
and caution separately and then try to piece them together later on. No. The solution is to learn
chunks of language. You find the noun caution and instead of leaving it there you check
what verbs collocate with caution. You could advise caution. You could urge caution. You
could exercise caution. You could even err on the side of caution. Learn all of these phrases,
all of these chunks of language and if you just remember one of them then you've done a great job.
Well done! So, get a collocation dictionary. Go on google and search "Collocation dictionary
download" and download one. No. Buy one. Don't do anything illegal because if you do something
illegal and the police talk to you you will say "Oh Toby told me to! And then the police will
come to me, they will arrest me, put me in prison for a very long time and I will think 'Oh my gosh
I've been charged with the crime of helping you!". Then when you learn a new word,
a noun, an adverb, a verb or an adjective you can consult your legal collocation dictionary to
find out what other words this word collocates with and then you can write some sentences and
if you remember just one of the uses you've learned a new word and how to use it and that
is a fantastic thing so well done! And with that we are finished. That was why you should care
about collocations! If you liked the video don't forget to SMASH that like button, subscribe if you
haven't already, leave a comment down below! My name is Toby and this was SMASH English.