Collocation Examples For English Learners

Collocation Examples For English Learners A collocation is made up of two or more words that are commonly used together in English. Think of collocations as words that usually go together. There are different kinds of collocations in English. Strong collocations are word pairings that are expected to come together, such as combinations with make and do: You make a cup of tea, but you do your homework. Collocations are very common in business settings when certain nouns are routinely combined with certain verbs or adjectives. For example, draw up a contract, set a price, conduct negotiations, etc. Collocation Examples Here are a number of common collocations in English: to make the bed I need to make the bed every day. to do homework My son does his homework after dinner. to take a risk Some people don't take enough risks in life. to give someone advice The teacher gave us some advice on taking tests. Verb Collocations Some of the most common collocations involve verb noun collocations used in everyday situations. Here are some examples of the types of verb collocations you will need as you continue learning English. to feel free Please feel free to take a seat and enjoy the show. to come prepared Make sure to come prepared for the test tomorrow. to save time You'll save time if you turn off your smart phone and concentrate on the lesson. to find a replacement We need to find a replacement for Jim as soon as possible. to make progress We're making progress on the project at work. to do the washing up I'll do the washing up and you can put Johnny to bed. Business Collocations Collocations are often used in business and work settings. There are a number of forms including adjectives, nouns and other verbs that combine with keywords to form business expressions.  Here are some business collocations for specific situations. to open an account Would you like to open an account at our bank? to forgive a debt Do you think the bank would forgive a debt? to land a deal We landed a deal worth $3 million. to key in a PIN Just key in your PIN at the ATM and you can make a deposit. to deposit a check I'd like to deposit this check for $100. hard-earned money Once you get a job, you'll know what hard-earned money really is. to close a deal I closed a deal on a new account last week. to write up a contract Let's write up your contract. counterfeit money Be on the lookout for counterfeit money in circulation. Common Expressions Collocations are often used as short expressions to describe how someone feels about a situation. In this case, collocations can be used in the adjective form, or also as emphatic expressions using an intensifier and a verb. Here are a few examples using some common  collocations: positively encourage someone to do something We'd like to positively encourage you to buy this stock. deeply regret the loss of someone / something I deeply regret the loss of your loved one. to be in an utter fury over something Tom's in an utter fury over the misunderstanding with his wife. to go to great lengths to do something He went to a great length to explain the situation. Learn more of these common expressions. Common Adjective CollocationsEmphatic Expressions - Strong Collocations Get a Collocation Dictionary   You can learn collocations from a number of resources. Academics and teachers like to use collocation databases to help study common collocation uses. However, for students one of the best tools is a collocation dictionary. A collocation dictionary is different from normal dictionaries in that it provides you with collocations commonly used with key words rather than a definition. Here is an example of a few of the collocations used  with the verb progress: Progress Adverbs: nicely, satisfactory, smoothly, well  - You are progressing smoothly in this course.| further -  As you further progress, you will learn more.  Verb Progress: fail to -  Hes failing to progress at work.Prepositions: beyond -  She failed to progress beyond high school.  | from, through -  Students should progress from this class with an improved knowledge of the subject.  I highly recommend using the Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English published by Oxford University Press to begin using collocations as a means of improving your vocabulary skills in English.

Definition and Examples of Linguistic Americanization

Definition and Examples of Linguistic Americanization In linguistics, Americanization is the influence of the distinctive lexical and grammatical forms of American English on other varieties of the English language. Also called linguistic Americanization. As Leech and Smith* observe below, If the term Americanization is taken to imply direct influence of AmE on BrE, it should be treated with caution (2009).See Examples and Observations below. Examples and Observations Globalization in the current era is associated, for better or for worse, with Americanization. This is particularly true of its cultural dimension. For it is the United States, as the worlds hyper-power, that has the economic, military, and political power to projects its culture and values globally. Yet, as many commentators have noted, Americans appear parochial and unworldly, hardly the cosmopolitan sophisticates needed to proffer a truly global vision.The ambiguity of the United States representing globality is perhaps no more apparent than in the projection of its language globally. On the one hand, Americans are particularly notorious for their linguistic insularity, rarely exhibiting the foreign language proficiency so common elsewhere in the world. Yet, as well known, the American language, English, is a global import, inherited from an earlier global power, England. Hence American ownership of global English is more tenuous than its ownership of other global cultural icons, such as McDonalds or Disney.(Selma K. Sonntag, The Local Politics of Global English: Case Studies in Linguistic Globalization. Lexington Books, 2003) Grammatical and Lexical ChangesThe evidence provided by the Brown family of corporaespecially the comparison between the British corpora (1961, 1991) and the American corpora (1961, 1992)often shows AmE to be in the lead or to show a more extreme tendency, and BrE to be following in its wake. Thus, must, in our data, has declined more in AmE than in BrE, and has become much rarer than have to and (have) got to in AmE conversational speech. Users of British English are familiar with lexical changes due to American influence, such as increasing use of movie(s) and guy(s), but grammatical changes from the same source are less noticeable. . . . [A] finding that AmE is ahead of BrE in a given frequency change does not necessarily imply direct transatlantic influenceit could simply be an ongoing change in both varieties where AmE is more advanced. If the term Americanization is taken to imply direct influence of AmE on BrE, it should be treated with caution.(*Geoffrey Leech and Nicholas Sm ith, Change and Constancy in Linguistic Change: How Grammatical Usage in Written English Evolved in the Period 1931-1991. Corpus Linguistics: Refinements and Reassessments, ed. by Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe. Rodopi, 2009) Be going to[B]e going to was more than twice as frequent in the American corpus as in the Australian or British corpora, suggesting that Americanization may be a factor in its growing popularity. That colloquialization may be another relevant factor is suggested by the finding that be going to is greatly preferred in speech over writing (by a ratio of 9.9:1), further confirmation for the applicability of this suggestion to AmE and BrE being provided by Leechs (2003) finding that between 1961 and 1991/2 be going to enjoyed a strong increase in popularity in American writing (51.6%) and in British writing (18.5%).(Peter Collins, The English Modals and Semi-Modals: Regional and Stylistic Variation. The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation: Corpus Evidence on English Past and Present, ed. by Terttu Nevalainen. John Benjamins, 2008)The Americanization of EuropeBecause of the advent of linguistic Americanization, . . . one can no longer claim that Europes lingua franca is unequivocally a Briti sh commodity. English is emerging in Europe, not only as a universal language, but also as a potential norm-generating variety. . . .Basically, what we have is a traditional basis for ELT [English Language Teaching], one centered in BrE, on the teacher as model, on British and American social studies, and on the goal of mimicking the idealized native speaker, evolving into a platform for ELT which constitutes a radical departure from such beliefs and practices. Instead, linguistic Americanization, the mixing of BrE and AmE which suggests a kind of mid-Atlantic accent and a rich blend of lexical usage, the idea of a variety of Euro-English, the use of postcolonial texts in cultural studies modules, and the desire to develop cross-cultural communicative skills, is on the upswing, while BrE, prescriptivism, and traditionalist positioning are declining.(Marko Modiano, EIL, Native-Speakerism and the Failure of European ELT. English as an International Language: Perspectives and Pedagogic al Issues, ed. by Farzad Sharifian. Multilingual Matters, 2009) Yiddish and American English: A Two-Way ProcessThroughout Yekl [1896] and his early stories, [Abraham] Cahan translates the Yiddish of characters into correct (albeit ornate) English while leaving incorporated English words in their misspelled, italicized forms: feller (fellow), for example, or preticly (perhaps particular). Speech thus represents the cultural intermixture arising from contact between the immigrant and American society, an intermixture captured in remarkably hybrid sentencesDont you always say you like to dansh with me becush I am a good dansher? (Yekl, 41)and even in individual words like oyshgreen: A verb coined from the Yiddish oys, out, and the English green, and signifying to cease being green (95n).This narrative technique also represents a reversal of perspective, whereby English becomes the contaminating element within another language. The Americanization of Yiddish is given from a Yiddish perspective. English words are thrown backrulesh (rules), deshepoitn (disappoint), saresfied (satisfied)transformed and defamiliarized by their inclusion in another linguistic system. Just as Yiddish becomes Americanized in Yekl, American English becomes Yiddishized: transformative linguistic contact is shown as a two-way process.(Gavin Roger Jones, Strange Talk: The Politics of Dialect Literature in Gilded Age America. University of California Press, 1999) Alternate Spellings: Americanisation