Collocations with the word vocabulary

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‘vocabulary‘ also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):

vocabulary noun

ADJ. extensive, large, rich, wide English has a rich vocabulary and literature. Try to develop a wide vocabulary. | limited, narrow, poor, restricted, small | active, passive | basic, essential, key | formal | business, scientific, specialized, technical

VERB + VOCABULARY have | acquire, learn Learners of languages acquire vocabulary through practice. | build, develop, enlarge, enrich, expand, extend, increase, widen This book has been designed to help you expand your vocabulary. | enter The word ‘think tank’ entered the vocabulary (= became part of the language) in the 1960s. | use Specialized vocabulary is used in all the major disciplines.

VOCABULARY + NOUN item

PREP. ~ for/of the essential vocabulary for tourism

PHRASES not in sb’s vocabulary The word ‘failure’is not in his vocabulary (= for him, failure does not exist).

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

all the words that a person knows or words used in a particular language or subject

Adjectives frequently used with vocabulary

small: limited, smallThis activity was designed to include all members of the class, including four with an extremely limited vocabulary.large: extensive, good, large, rich, varied, wideThis method enables learners to develop a wide vocabulary in the target language.only including certain words: controlled, core, restrictedThey propose a core vocabulary organized in areas of meaning which are of interest to young learners.easy: basic, simpleThe children enjoy learning basic French vocabulary.important or useful: essential, important, key, usefulTeachers will be able to highlight key vocabulary in English.difficult: complex, difficultTell the students to focus on noting down simple words, not any complex technical vocabulary the speaker uses.not known: new, unfamiliarDon’t use unfamiliar vocabulary in your questions.suitable: appropriate, relevantPupils learn how to comment on works of art, using appropriate vocabulary.that you understand: passive, receptiveRises in receptive vocabulary resulted from reading performance rather than the other way round.that you can use: active, expressiveThe successful student will possess a minimum active vocabulary of about 1,000 Russian words.special: domain-specific, special, specialist, specialized, subject-specific, technicalEducation, like all professions, has a specialized vocabulary.used by most people: common, everyday, general, standardThe words ‘guilt’ and ‘conscience’ are common words in everyday vocabulary.of a subject area: geographical, mathematical, musical, political, scientific, theatricalOpportunities are also provided for children to develop mathematical vocabulary.

Verbs frequently used with vocabulary

have a vocabulary: haveYou really don’t have a very varied vocabulary, do you?improve your vocabulary: broaden, build, develop, enlarge, enrich, expand, extend, improve, increase, widenA dictionary of synonyms and antonyms will allow you to write more effectively and enrich your vocabulary.learn or practise vocabulary: acquire, learn, practiseYou will acquire appropriate vocabulary for shopping in supermarkets, clothes shops, and the pharmacy.teach vocabulary: introduce, teachCooking instructions can be used at a very simple level to teach vocabulary.not have a large vocabulary: lackYoung children lack the vocabulary to express their fears, memories, or distress.use vocabulary: employ, useRachel writes in an appropriately impersonal style, using varied vocabulary.become part of a vocabulary: enterRecently she has found lots of new words entering her vocabulary.

Nouns frequently used after vocabulary

word: item, term, wordThe list of vocabulary items put together was selected so as to reflect the needs and interests of the prospective learners.learning: acquisition, building, development, extension, learning, recognitionThe course includes classes on academic writing, grammar, and vocabulary development.knowledge or skills: knowledge, skillsThis game helps kids to develop spelling and vocabulary skills.list: listLesson 1 begins with a vocabulary list covering Basic Expressions.activity: exercise, testWe had to have a vocabulary test.

What I consider to be the biggest challenge for students is to memorize different collocations. While learning language from scratch, especially if they do it without a teacher, they try to learn as many words as they can. However, these single units of language make no sense if a student doesn’t know how they ‘work’ together. The role of the teacher is not only to present new information to students but also make sure that they study it in the right way. Thus, we need explain what collocations are and how they work. And here, in this article, I would like to share some resources, where one can find the right collocations.

Online and offline dictionaries

Of course, the first idea that comes to mind is to search for the collocations in a dictionary. You can open a collocations dictionary (the links below), enter the keyword and see what words collocate with your target one (for instance, what adjectives, verbs and prepositions collocate with this or that noun). Alternatively, you can do the same with an offline dictionary.

Longman Collocations Dictionary and Thesaurus

One of the best offline dictionaries to buy and use. You can find collocations, synonyms, false friends and all the information you may need in one source!

Oxford Collocations Dictionary

There is a paper dictionary and an online one as well. However, you can access it only after paying. This paper and online collocations dictionary is concentrated solely on collocations.

Free collocation

I do like this resource since it has a clear structure and provides examples of different collocations. It gives various collocations with different parts of speech. However, sometimes I see that it lacks some collocations.

Cambridge dictionary

This dictionary provides us with definitions and different collocations depending on the meaning of the word. Moreover, here one can find idioms, phrasal verbs and collocations in the context (in sentences). On the other hand, since all the collocations are given in sentences, there are only the most crucial ones.

Corpora

Ludwig guru — is my favourite corpus. Here we can see how frequent the collocation is, see the definition, examples, and all what you need to know about how the language works. However, Free account has limited functions and limited queries a day..

Corpus of Contemporary American English  is divided into spoken, fiction, popular magazines, newspapers, & academic journals genres. You can use it only online and without opportunity to download the texts.

British National Corpus — this corpus allows different kinds of searches, e.g. word search, part of speech search or phrase search. It requires registration, which is free, after about 20 searches.

Just the word — this website will probably be most useful for English learners in terms of searching collocations.

Phrases in English — it allows searching for separate words and phrases.

Textbooks

One of the ways to learn collocations is to study them from textbooks. I collected a couple of textbooks that can help you and your students master collocations.

• Of course, when we talk about learning collocations, the first textbook that comes to my mind is Collocations in Use, Cambridge. This book is available in two levels, Intermediate and Advanced, providing hundreds of collocations in context with exercises to practice them. The book contains some tips and learning strategies in order to make study as effective as possible. 
• Boost your vocabulary, Penguin English Guides — this textbook series consists of 4 parts and covers the most important words and phrases (from Elementary to Upper-Intermediate level). The book is appropriate for self-study. It is good for the learners, who want to extend their vocabulary in a short time.
• Outcomes, Pearson. Indeed, a lexically-rich course based on the lexical approach. Apart from the focus on extending students’ vocabulary while working with Student’s book and Workbook, this series has a separate textbook Vocabulary Builder, which provides additional information on collocations, fixed phrases and exercises for practice.

What should I do with my students?

• Explain to them what collocations are;
• Demonstrate them how to use the dictionaries above (search for collocations or find the collocations in the context;
• Provide them with ‘searching practice’ at the lesson;
• Give students additional practice on collocations.