Collocations are groups of words that are often found together. Native speakers have a large repertoire of these word groups, and can use them without thinking. Language learners need to build their own repertoire of collocations through reading and listening, and by noticing word groups that commonly occur.
Here are some collocations from the essay I wrote last week:
- a rich variety
- a vital part, a necessary part
- a range of reasons
- musical preferences
- life stories
- express emotions, arouse emotions
- a commercial product
- cultural identity
- human existence
- give importance
These are just some of the most obvious collocations in the essay. We could also add grammatical collocations like 'a means of' and 'valued over'. To read more about collocations, click here and here.
Hi simon,
Is it alright to use pronouns such as them, they, her, him, themselves in academic writing task 2?
I took my exam last july and got an overall band score of 7.5. I got the required band from the 3 subtests but unfortunately, my writing did not meet the grade of 7. I just got 6.5. More advice please. Thank you very much
Posted by: Michelle | Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 00:35
Hello Simon,
Thank you for the great article. I am very much of the opinion that collocations are overly essential to learn because relevant usage of them indicates considerable possession of your language skills.
Posted by: boburShox | Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 17:07
hi Simon,
Wring Test 2:
Some people think that young people should follow the traditional values of their society. Others think that young people should be free to act as individuals. Discuss both these views and give your opinion.
For this topic, i find it little difficult to organize the topic and supporting sentence, could u plz help on this? Thanks a lot.
Posted by: Borney | Friday, October 19, 2012 at 03:01
Thanks Simon
We are using all your advices and lessons in practice and are looking forward further hits.
Posted by: yusufboy | Wednesday, October 31, 2012 at 08:38