Collocation
Collocation refers to how words go together or form fixed relationships.
| typical collocations | incorrect/untypical collocations |
| heavy rain | |
| high temperature | |
| scenic view | |
| have an experience |
- She has blonde hair.
- Not:
She has beige hair. - She was discharged from hospital.
- Not:
She was released from hospital.
Collocations may be strong or weak. Strong collocations are where the link between the two words is quite fixed and restricted. Weak collocations are where a word can collocate with many other words.
Compare
| strongmakeexpress + a wishfulfil | Very few words can collocate with the noun wish. This makes wish a strong collocator. |
| weakapartment, beach, car, camera, chance,big + disappointment, fight, gun, lamp, moon, news,ocean, pain, pity, price, queue, table, umbrella,upset, wait, window | big can collocate with hundreds of words, therefore it’s a weak collocator. |
Strong collocations
| whisk an egg | curly hair |
| winding road | blissfully ignorant |
Weak collocations
-
big/enormous/large + house/lorry/cup
-
fast/shiny/expensive + car/motorbike/aeroplane
-
very/really/extremely + interesting/hot/generous
-
brown/straight/long + fence/hair/line
Becoming aware of collocations is part of vocabulary learning. All languages have a large number of collocating words. A good dictionary will help you and dictionaries of collocations are also available.