Types of Collocations

A collocation is a group of two or more words that often go together. There are different types of collocations in English. It is required to memorize collocations as an entire chunk of words because a word in a collocation may mean different from its actual meaning. 

In order to make an effective use of collocations non-native English speakers need to practice them often by reading and speaking. You might ask, ‘why do I need to learn collocations?’ Mastering the use collocations in your daily language will your language sound natural and you will be understood well. 

Following are the samples of collocations:

‘Fast food is not good for health.’

‘We need to leave now. Have a quick meal.’

In the above sentences, ‘fast food’ and ‘quick meal’ are collocations. We cannot replace ‘fast’ with ‘quick’ in ‘fast food’ and ‘quick’ with ‘fast’ in ‘quick meal.’ 

Do Make Collocations

Make your bed.

I do cleaning once a week.

I only made two mistakes in my paper.

Can you do me a favour?

Did he even make an effort?

I’ll do your dishes.

Don’t make a mess in the kitchen.

Do your hair. They’re looking shabby. 

Collocations of Time

With the word ‘time’ different prepositions and verbs are used. Look at the following collocations of time and understand their meanings through sentences.

The guests arrived bang on time (=exactly on time)

I water plants in my free time.

Students couldn’t finish their exam because they ran out of time.

Will you be able to make time for cleaning? (find time)

Following are the collocations that use verbs like ‘keep’, ‘save’, ‘pay’, ‘come’, ‘go’ and ‘get’. 

All of you keep quiet.

Turn off the lights when not in use. It saves electricity.

You must pay him a visit. He is not well.

Try to come early tomorrow.

Go abroad for higher studies.

He got married in his early thirties. 

There are several kinds of collocations made from combinations of noun, adjective and verb etc. 

Read the following different types of collocations:

Adverb and Adjective

It was an utterly stupid thing to do.

They were completely satisfied with our performance. 

Adjectives and Nouns

Corruption is a major problem faced by many of the developing nations.  

Consuming fast food has serious side-effects. 

Nouns and Verbs

We heard dogs barking at midnight.

Snow was falling when we reached New York. 

Noun and Noun 

I’d like to have a cup of tea please.

Diya received a round of applause.

Verb and noun 

She always does her home work before going to sleep.

I have to give a presentation in an hour.

Verbs and expression with prepositions 

She was filled with joy when she was honored for her outstanding performance.

He was fuming with anger when I went to his place.