Skip to content

Collocations for IELTS

Website Navigation: Home / Resources / Collocations for IELTS

What is a collocation?

A collocation is two or more words that often go together to make it more meaningful. These combinations just sound “right” to native English speakers, who use them all the time. On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and just sound “wrong”. Using a different combination of words sounds unnatural or awkward.

Look at these examples:

So, why should we learn collocations? Because,

  • Your language will be more natural and everyone will easily understand you.
  • You will have alternative and richer ways of expressing yourself.
  • It is easier for our brains to remember and use language in chunks or blocks rather than as single words.

How to learn these collocations?

  • Be aware of collocations and try to recognize them when you see or hear them.
  • Treat collocations as single blocks of language. Think of them as individual blocks or chunks, and learn strongly support, not strongly + support.
  • When you learn a new word, write down other words that collocate with it (remember rightly, remember distinctly, remember vaguely, remember vividly).
  • Read as much as possible. Reading is an excellent way to learn vocabulary and collocations in context and naturally.
  • Revise what you learn regularly. Practice using new collocations in context as soon as possible after learning them.
  • Learn collocations in groups that work for you. You could learn them by topic (time, number, weather, money, family) or by a particular word (take action, take a chance, take an exam).
  • You can find information on collocations in any good learner’s dictionary. And you can also find specialized dictionaries of collocations.

For a single word, there can be more than one collocation.

Let’s take the word 'Rain' as an example:

  • There was heavy rain last night. (adjective + noun)
  • At sunset, rain began to pour down. (noun + verb)
  • It rained non-stop all night. (verb + adverb)
  • A few drops of rain had fallen. (noun + noun)

Different forms of Collocations

with examples

error: Content is protected !!