Learn about collocations

Collocations are word-pairs that go together. For example, we match the words, ‘afraid’ and ‘of’ – Tomi is afraid of spiders.

English is full of collocations and this is something that is often difficult for English learners. Let’s have a look at eight word sets that we can use to describe job responsibilities:

responsible for
report to
work for
liaise with
in charge of
deal with
come up with
take care of

You can use these phrases to describe your job:

I work for a company called Synnexia. I am responsible for the company website and I report to the IT manager. I am also in charge of our online ordering systems and I liaise with the Accounts Department. I come up with ideas for improving and upgrading the site. I deal with the online orders that we receive and I take care of any technical problems which occur.


For more practice on word combinations, try quizzes 1, 45, 342 and 343 at http://www.roadtogrammar.com/

Is English suited to being the International Language?

Well, this is an interesting question. English is the language of the world today, there is no denying it. However, it achieved this status as an ‘accident of history’ rather than by actually being the best language for international communication and commerce.

So is English suited to being the International Language? In short, my answer is NO, for the following reasons:

1 The grammar is terribly difficult, and not always standardised, although easier than some other European languages.

2 The pronunciation is difficult for speakers of other languages, especially the ‘th’ sounds (you did realise there are two, didn’t you?) – not many other languages have these sounds.

3 The spelling is not standardised. Why does ‘head’ rhyme with ‘said’?

4 The vocabulary is huge and we often have many words for one thing. Phrasal verbs can often cause problems for learners and there are thousands of them!

On the positive side, English adapts easily to scientific and technical language.
I have personally had some experience of learning Spanish, Turkish and Malay. I can tell you, all three of these languages are much easier than English. If only Spanish was the International Language, how much easier it would be for everyone (except English speakers, who are notoriously lazy when it comes to learning new languages!)