Hi, I'm Chris Jordan and this our second video looking at 'word friendships' or
'collocation' in the vocabulary section of the BULATS Listening and Reading test.
If you've watched the previous video,
you'll remember that we're asked to choose the
BEST word or phrase to complete the sentence.
In today's video, we're going to look a little more deeply at collocation,
and how it can help us choose the right word when more than one answer seems possible.
First though, it's important to remember that sometimes a sentence has the right grammar,
but still seems not be a good sentence.
Often this is because the wrong words are being used together - as in this example here.
In English 'produce' is not a friend for 'service' – we don't 'produce a service'.
So, although people could understand it, it's not really a 'good English sentence'.
By far the most common verb that's a friend for service is 'provide',
the second would be 'offer'.
So, these are much BETTER words to use with 'service' for this meaning.
Let's try a BULATS question.
This one is designed to test the English ability of candidates in the B1/B2 range.
But before we look at the options, let's read the sentence and decide what we think it means.
What kind of word is missing,
and, importantly, does the gap seem to have a connection to
another word or group of words in the sentence?
Well, clearly, we're going to need a verb,
and the word 'impression' here seems to have an important connection to the gap.
Can you think of a word that it could be?
Well, let's go ahead and take a look at the options.
Now let's look at the options.
One of these is a close friend of 'impression'.
But which one is it?
Well, if you have a B1 or B2 level of English,
you are probably familiar with the phrase
'create an impression'.
It's a common collocation, and therefore, the BEST answer.
One thing we can see from a word like impression is that one word might have different kinds of friends.
So, it has a set of verb friends,
and we can see that its three best verb friends are give, make and create.
It also has a set of adjective friends
and it has a preposition 'buddy' as well.
Here's a TIP: when leaning vocabulary,
try learning it from a sentence or text,
rather than from a list.
In this way, you can see how words are being used together.
And you can make a note of any words that seem to have a relationship.
So, for example, if you learn 'impression' from this sentence,
you could also learn 'create a positive impression on sb'.
This will not only prepare you for the vocabulary question in BULATS,
but it will also improve your ability to express yourself in good English,
and it's going to improve your listening and reading, too.
The other thing to remember about collocation questions in BULATS is
that they can be used to test any level:
some may be very easy and others might be quite difficult.
Questions aimed at testing low-level candidates will focus on
really common words with their very common friends.
For example, at low a low level, A2,
you would be expected to know which of these words is
the right 'friend' for 'business trip'
And of course, the word you often see is 'take'.
Take a business trip.
If your target was intermediate or high intermediate,
B1 or B2, you would be expected to know which
of these words is often used with 'issue'.
And, the best 'friend' here to show a problem is 'fixed' is 'resolve'
Here's another question also targeting the B1/B2 range.
For this, you need to work out
which word or unit has a special connection with the gap.
And we can see here, that 'strategy' is what influences our choice of verb.
Does any of these seem to be a good friend of 'strategy'?
Now, if you have a high intermediate, or B2 level of English,
you have probably seen 'employ a strategy' several times,
and hopefully that's familiar.
And finally, if you are trying to show you have an advanced, or C, level of English,
you would be asked to identify friends of less common words.
As in this question.
However, while 'impact' is an intermediate level word in Workplace English,
it has quite a strong friendship with one of these other words which are less common.
Does any look familiar?
Well 'profound' is a less frequent word,
but 'profound impact' is another way to say a 'strong impact',
but it's about five times more common.
So, it's important to remember in BULATS vocabulary questions,
that we consider whether getting the right answer depends on
working out which is the best collocation
for a key word in the sentence.
Now, there might be times when you're doing the BULATS vocabulary question and you feel
that more than one answer could be right.
So, what should you do?
Well the first thing you should do is to check the gap and the options carefully
to see if a preposition is important.
Let's go back to an earlier example:
In this example, you might wonder if both
'take' and 'go' are correct.
However, if we use the verb 'go' it MUST be 'go on a business trip'.
But, the preposition 'on' is not given,
so 'go' cannot actually be correct.
The second thing we can do if several words seem to be possible is to look carefully to
see if there is a word or phrase with a special connection to the gap.
As we had with this example.
'strategy' is the partner,
but we need to think what word is a natural or close friend for 'strategy'.
And to do this, we need to rely on our experience of the language.
So, sometimes you may find you need to go by what feels right.
Well, we hope this gives you a better understanding of collocation, or word friendships.
This is really important for improving your ability to express yourself effectively in English.
Please remember, for more help, though, preparing for the BULATS exam or
enhancing your Workplace English,
please check out our other videos in this series.
Thank you for watching today and good luck.
For more infomation >> Question & Answer - "Das Größte Geschenk" - Duration: 19:57. 
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