SMALL GEMS ALONG THE WAY o QUÉ SON LAS COLOCACIONES EN INGLÉS

Have you ever asked yourself why native English speakers say fast food instead of, for example, quick food or fast meal? And why hard work and not arduous work? What about heavy rain, big fight and regular exercise? I’m sure we can all find at least one other way to say these things. And yet, natives always use the same combinations, over and over again. So why do you think that is?

In this post I’m going to talk about the English collocations. Now, the Oxford Dictionary defines Collocation as the “the habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance” (1). Quite fancy, huh? I’d prefer a simpler explanation if someone had asked me back at school. Here goes my attempt: A collocation in English linguistics is a pair (or more) of words which are frequently placed together, like strong tea, make a mistake, catch the flu, etc. They can say something else instead but they don’t. Natives like using the same combinations. Children learn them by their parents, teacher, etc. And that’s why they sound so natural and so “Native” when non-natives use them. We can always say commit a mistake or do the wrong thing instead of make a mistake and people would still understand us but it wouldn’t sound as if a native would use it to describe that particular thing.

There are of course loads and loads of collocations out there and you could probably found a great number of books, posts and sheets of exercises online, not to mention the collocations dictionaries available both on paper and online. I strongly encourage you to get one of those and read a bit every day, even though it’s just a collocation or two. But there are two more useful things you can do to learn new collocations:

1) Pay attention – you don’t have to open a collocation dictionary to know that two words go together. Just pay attention to all that you read and hear. When you talk with the same person, watch the same TV show or read the same book day after day you’re going to start recognizing the repeated patterns. Because a person (no matter if talking to a friend, writing a book or creating a script) tends to repeat some words or combinations of words over and over again. I once read a novel in which the author repeated the expression “keep her mouth shut” (with small variations, mainly in the verbal tenses) seventeen times in the same chapter. I counted! And while sometimes enough is enough and we can’t help seeing the piece as what it is – perhaps not a very good one -, I’d still recommend paying attention to the repeated patterns and even writing them down to help committing them to memory.

2) Get interested – You should try to pick your own curiosity and look up and write down every gem you find. And when you find them, keep them, write them down and try to find some other combinations related to them so you can keep your mind on them for a little longer and expand your semantic horizons.

To sum it up, I don’t believe reading grammar books and dictionaries all they long is the ultimate way to remember new collocations and put them into practice. Sometimes, it’s better to find them naturally coming upon them while reading a great novel or listening to a favourite song. Because when we have something interesting or loved to associate them with, these new collocations will become hard to forget. Just go with the flow and enjoy the ride.

I’ll finish this post with some collocations I’ve found in the last book I read. Here they are with Spanish translation:

  • A gust of wind = una ráfaga de viento
  • A peal of laughter = una carcajada
  • A flight of stairs = Un tramo de escalones
  • A copse of trees = Un bosquecillo, una arboleda

Let me know which ones you’ve found in a comment bellow.

(1) OXFORDDICTIONARY https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/collocation

1) Linguistics – The habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance.

2) The action of placing things side by side or in position. ‘the collocation of the two pieces’

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