Best Collocation Resources for 2021
Through many years of proofreading excellent research papers, I have learned many an English word from non-native academics. So many in fact that I have often wondered how they developed such a rich and varied vocabulary. After a time it dawned on me that their dictionaries, thesauruses, and translators were hard at work finding the perfect word. And while sometimes those tools came up with words that worked perfectly, other times, they just didn’t sound right to my native ear. And this usually boiled down to one thing: collocations.
Collocations are word combinations that native speakers habitually use, so much so that when an author uses a different word combination, regardless of the correctness of the defined term, it sounds odd and out of place. For example, is it strong tea or powerful tea? The meaning is essentially the same, but native speakers only say strong tea. Conversely, we only ever say powerful computer. These little differences can make what would otherwise be a perfect sentence seem awkward and thus distracting to the reader.
As a copy-editor, collocations are one of the things that I watch out for. Anything that takes a reader’s focus away from the research being presented is exactly what an editor is for and is one of the reasons every journal recommends academics use professional English language services like those at Kismet.
Amazingly, there are over 4.3 million collocations in the English language, with some more important than others. The most annoying are collocations involving prepositions (indifferent to, concern about, confronted with) as they are (a) numerous, (b) unforgiving, and, (c) infuriatingly, often different than your native language. And mastery of prepositions is only the tip of the iceberg. Under the waterline are many more collocations involving adverb+verb, adverb+adjective, verb+verb, noun+noun, etc. combinations. There are even super irksome word orders like ‘black and white, ‘fork and knife’ that can never go the other way.
The best way to overcome this is to use a collocations dictionary. Unlike a thesaurus that helps you find related words with slightly different meanings, a collocations dictionary helps you find the word combinations that match the word you’re using. So, for example, you can look up the word ‘artery’ and find that it adjectively collocates with ‘main’ or ‘major’, not ‘key’ or ‘primary’. Below is a list of what I consider the best go-to collocation resources for academics and English learners:
1. MacMillan Collocations Dictionary
Somewhat of a standard-bearer, this dictionary uses a corpus of 2-billion words of modern English. The corpus draws from many areas but firstly from academic texts. So, their choice of words is geared towards the writer’s productive needs and thus very useful. Rather than just looking at what words go together, they ask ‘What meaning do you want to express, and what is the most natural and typical way of doing it?’, which sometimes creates different collocations. Each entry includes contextual examples, grammatical notes, synonyms and alternative expressions.
Note: The book is readily available from most online bookstores, but you can also use their regular dictionary and press the collocations button on each entry to find all the collocations included in the paper version for free.
For more information visit: https://www.macmillandictionary.com/browse/collocations/british/a/
2. Longman Collocations Dictionary and Thesaurus
This dictionary is also a thesaurus and thus a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, it is not free. However, it is known for providing information in a clear, simple way and offering explanations for most examples. With over 70,000 collocations, this is a much loved favourite of many writers, and thus a popular reference book to spend your money on.
For more information visit: http://global.longmandictionaries.com/
3. Oxford Collocations Dictionary (OR freecollocation.com)
Oxford boasts over 150,000 collocations and 9,000 headwords and is useful for writers and learners alike. Providing collocations for British and American English, each entry is organized around a word and its collocates, grouped by part of speech. So, verbs that collocate with the entry, for example, are listed in the same spot. The print copy comes with a CD-ROM that only works on PCs, while the online version is subscription-based. However, there is a nifty site called freecollocation.com which somehow links to the dictionary at zero cost.
For more information visit: https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Collocations-Dictionary-Colin-McIntosh/dp/0194325385/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
4. 2500+ Collocations List from A-Z with Examples
This is a large list of the most frequent collocations and a good place for English writers still working at the C1 level as it covers all the basics. And, it is free. There are also a ton of other resources on the site for improving your English, so if English is something you struggle with, this is a good place for your continued learning.
https://7esl.com/collocations/
5. English Collocations in Use: Advanced
This is a book for self-study and shouldn’t be considered a reference book. It covers all the most useful collocations at an advanced level and features tips and strategies for learning as well as lots of exercises. Collocations are organized by topic area, and it is best for highly motivated students to improve their English to an advanced level.
For more information visit: https://elt.oup.com/catalogue/items/global/dictionaries/9780194724890?cc=cz&selLanguage=cs