A great way to become more fluent when you speak is to remember “collocations”.
These are words that go together to create phrases.
There are different types of collocations in English. For example, there are “verb – noun” collocations, such as “do a test” or “drive a car”.
There are also “adjective – noun” collocations, such as “wide range” or “sharp knife”.
How collocations help your fluency
Often when you speak, you can remember individual words. But you might hesitate to use the word in a sentence because you don’t know how it combines with other words. When you learn collocations (the two words together), you won’t hesitate or translate when you speak English.
Verb-Noun Collocations
These are some of the easiest English collocations to learn. Very often, the verbs are quite simple (like do, make, have), but one verb can collocate with many different nouns.
It helps to learn patterns. Here are a few for you:
We use “do” with everyday tasks; while we use “make” for creative tasks.
We use “ride” for things we need to get on, such as bicycles, motorbikes or horses.
We use “have” (in the continuous form) for things we’re attending, like meetings, discussions or parties.
We use “leave” when we get out of a building, in expressions like “leave home” or “leave work”.
We use “pass” for things we succeed in, like exams, tests and inspections.
Verb-Noun Collocations
Choose the correct answer.