Collocations in English | Make and Do B1

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B1 · Vocabulary

A Word Is Never Alone — Collocations

📖 From my experience:
My French is C1 level. But early on I made collocation errors constantly. ‘I did a mistake’ instead of ‘I made a mistake’. ‘A strong wind’ I knew — but ‘a heavy rain’? In French, both are ‘fort’. The adjective is the same. In English, the partner changes. That’s a collocation — words that live together.

🎯 Language focus:
Collocations = words that naturally go together. They can’t always be predicted by grammar rules — they must be learned as chunks.

Common collocations:
make + mistake, decision, progress, effort, tea, a living
do + homework, exercise, research, business, damage
heavy + rain, traffic, drinker, smoker, bag
strong + coffee, wind, opinion, candidate, performance

✅ Make or Do?
1. She made a decision after a long meeting.
2. We did research for three months.
3. He makes a good living as a barista.
4. They did a lot of damage to the building.

Fill the gap with the right collocation word

1. I ___ a mistake in my report. (make/do) made (make a mistake — fixed collocation)

2. Is it ‘heavy rain’ or ‘strong rain’? heavy rain — English collocates rain with heavy, not strong

3. She ___ research for her thesis. (make/do) did (do research — fixed)

🧒 For younger learners: Make a ‘word family tree’ with the target word at the trunk and collocating words as branches. Kids draw it, they remember it.

👩‍🏫 Cambridge CELTA note: Collocation teaching is a key B1–B2 vocabulary skill. Teach with lexical sets: present ‘make’ and ‘do’ together with a visual sorting task. Nation’s research suggests collocational knowledge is essential for fluency. Avoid teaching single words — always teach the word in its natural company.

Independent project; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Confers no qualification.

A Word Is Never Alone — Collocations

A Word Is Never Alone — Collocations

Fill the gap with the right collocation word

Find out what your English actually produces.

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