Use collocations and phrasal verbs naturally and accurately, choosing word partnerships that sound right to a fluent reader

What this dot point is asking

This dot point is about word partnerships: the fact that English words travel in expected company, and that using the natural combination is part of sounding accurate and fluent. Two kinds of partnership matter at O-Level. Collocations are pairs of words that simply go together ("heavy rain", "make a decision", "fast food"), where the right partner is fixed by convention rather than logic. Phrasal verbs are a verb plus a small particle ("give up", "look after", "turn on"), where the particle changes the meaning. Getting these right lifts the language mark; getting them wrong, often by translating directly from another language, is a common and avoidable error.

The answer

Collocations are fixed partnerships

A collocation is a combination of words that fluent speakers expect to see together. The choice is not about meaning being wrong, but about the partnership being unnatural. You "make a mistake", not "do a mistake"; rain is "heavy", not "strong"; you "take a photo", not "make a photo". All the alternatives are grammatically possible and would be understood, but they sound wrong to a fluent reader, and that costs marks for accuracy. Common patterns include:

• Verb plus noun: make a decision, do homework, take a break, pay attention, have breakfast, catch a cold.
• Adjective plus noun: heavy traffic, strong coffee, fast food, deep sleep, bitter disappointment.
• Adverb plus adjective: highly likely, deeply concerned, fully aware, perfectly clear.

There is no rule to deduce these; they are learned by reading and noticing which words keep company.

Phrasal verbs are verb plus particle

A phrasal verb is a verb combined with a particle (a small word such as "up", "off", "out", "in", "on", "after"). The particle often changes the meaning so much that you cannot guess it from the verb alone. "Look" means to direct your eyes, but "look after" means to care for, "look into" means to investigate, and "look up to" means to admire. Because the meaning is not predictable, phrasal verbs must be learned as whole units, each with its correct particle. Using the wrong particle ("look on the word in a dictionary" instead of "look up the word") is a frequent slip.

Why direct translation goes wrong

Many partnership errors come from translating from another language word for word. "Open the light" (instead of "turn on the light"), "say me the answer" (instead of "tell me the answer") and "make sport" (instead of "do sport" or "play sport") are classic examples. The individual words may be correct translations, but English has its own fixed partner, and only the English partnership sounds right. Being alert to this is half the battle.

How to learn and check them

Treat partnerships as single items to learn, not as free word choices:

• Notice and record combinations as you read, learning the whole phrase ("make a decision"), not the words apart.
• Learn the verb plus its usual partner together, and for phrasal verbs learn the particle as part of the verb.
• Read your work aloud. An unnatural partnership often sounds wrong even when you cannot state the rule, which is your cue to check it.

Examples in context

Example 1. The same noun, the right verb. Consider the noun "a decision". A fluent writer "makes a decision", "reaches a decision" or "comes to a decision", but never "does a decision". A candidate who writes "I did a quick decision" has chosen a verb that is grammatically possible but breaks the collocation, and the sentence instantly reads as non-native. Replacing "did" with "made" fixes nothing about the grammar and everything about the naturalness, which is precisely the quality the language mark is testing.

Example 2. One verb, four meanings from the particle. Take the base verb "give". On its own it means to hand something over, but the particle transforms it: "give up" means to stop trying ("Do not give up"), "give in" means to surrender ("They gave in to the demands"), "give out" means to distribute or to run out ("The teacher gave out the papers"; "the supplies gave out"), and "give away" means to reveal or to donate ("His face gave away the secret"). A reader who knows only "give" cannot follow these; a writer who controls the particles can say exactly what is meant, which is why phrasal verbs reward learning as whole units.

Try this

• Cue. Correct the partnership in "The student made a lot of progress but did three mistakes." "Made progress" is correct, but "did three mistakes" breaks the collocation; the noun "mistakes" partners with "make", so it should read "made three mistakes".

• Cue. Explain the difference between "look up" and "look after" in "I will look up the word and look after my sister." "Look up" (the word) means to find information, while "look after" (my sister) means to care for; the different particles give the same verb two unrelated meanings, so each must be learned as a unit.

• Cue. Rewrite "Please open the air-conditioner and close the lights" so the partnerships are natural. English does not "open" or "close" appliances and lights in this way; use the phrasal verbs "turn on the air-conditioner" and "turn off the lights".