Collocations

English collocations: how to stop saying do a mistake

Why is it make a decision but do homework, take a break but have a rest? There's no rule: these are collocations, word pairs that native speakers choose automatically. The verb isn't predictable from the noun, so a guess easily comes out as do a mistake or strong rain instead of make a mistake and heavy rain. Adjectives work the same way: interested in, but good at and afraid of. You know each word; the mistake is in how they combine.

That's why you need to learn whole pairs, and learn them inside a sentence. Read the example, cover the meaning and recall the combination from the idea: the whole chunk, not just the verb. Then write a sentence about yourself and check whether you picked the right verb or preposition. The section is organised by the verbs make, take, get and keep, and by prepositions after adjectives. Each collocation has a clear meaning, a common mistake and an exercise.

Collocations matter especially in IELTS Writing: accurate word combinations count towards Lexical Resource, and a slip like do a mistake stands out immediately. In LetsWords you write sentences with collocations from ready-made sets and your own collections, and the check corrects a wrong combination and suggests natural phrasing. Spaced repetition brings them back in later sessions, and in Writing you can practise the vocabulary criterion on its own. Start with the first set.