#23 B1/2 ADDITIONAL COLLOCATIONS

#23 B1/2 ADDITIONAL COLLOCATIONS

 

Hi, and welcome back to podcasts with English for French. I’m Alison, and today we are looking into collocations.

At the B2 level, you already know thousands of nouns. You know words like attention, cold, time, and promise. But are you pairing them with the correct verbs? Often, intermediate learners translate directly from their native language, leading to phrases that sound just a little bit "off" to a native ear, for example, to do a mistake instead of to make a mistake, or to pass time instead of to spend time. Today, we are mastering six essential verbs that are very useful in phrases and in collocations: pay, catch, waste, win, give, and keep. Let's break them down.

Collocations, as you probably already know, are two or more words that are used together at the same time to mean something specific, and if you use the wrong verb, it can sound odd.

 Pay, Catch, and Waste: Let’s start with three verbs that frequently show up in both professional settings and daily life.

1. PAY (Attention / A compliment) The Nuance: In many languages, you "make" attention or "give" a compliment. In English, attention and compliments are things you pay.

Examples:

"You need to pay attention to the road signs while driving.

 By the way, I loved your presentation earlier—everyone was paying you compliments about it."

1. CATCH (Someone's eye / A glimpse) The Nuance: Beyond catching a ball or catching a bus, catch is used for a sudden visual connection. If you look at someone and they look back at the exact same time, you catch their eye. If you see something for just a split second, you catch a glimpse of it.

Examples:

 "I tried to catch the waiter's eye to ask for the bill, but he was too busy.

I only caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared into the kitchen."

1. WASTE (Time / Breath) The Nuance: We all know about wasting money, but at B2, you should also use waste for communication and effort. If talking to someone is useless because they won't listen, you are wasting your breath.

Example:

 "Don't waste your time trying to convince him to change his mind; you're just wasting your breath."

Win, Give, and Keep: Now, let's move on to our next three verbs: win, give, and keep. These are crucial for describing relationships, respect, and trust.

1. WIN (An argument)The Nuance: You don't "gain" an argument, you win it. More importantly, abstract things like professional admiration aren't just given to you—you have to win someone over to your point of view.

Example:

"She didn't just win the argument during the debate; she also managed to win the entire committee over to her point of view."

1. GIVE (A hand / Someone a lift) The Nuance: Give is incredibly versatile. In casual or workplace English, if you help someone with a physical task (like carrying boxes), you give them a hand. If you drive them somewhere so they don't have to take the bus, you give them a lift (or a ride).

Examples:

"If you're struggling with those heavy files, I can give you a hand.

 I can also give you a lift home after work if your car is still in the garage."

1. KEEP (In touch / An open mind) The Nuance: Keep is all about continuity. To maintain a relationship with someone, you keep in touch. When approaching a new, strange idea without judging it too quickly, you keep an open mind.

Examples:

 "Even though we moved to different cities, we still keep in touch.

It’s important to keep an open mind when experiencing a new culture."

Let’s bring all six of these together into a natural workplace scenario. Listen to how these verbs flow together smoothly:

"When I started my new job, I made sure to pay attention to how the senior staff operated. I wanted to win their respect early on. My manager was great—she always kept an open mind when I suggested new ideas. Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of our quarterly targets and realized we were behind. Instead of wasting my breath complaining, I asked a colleague to give me a hand with the data so we could fix it. We worked late, but we stayed motivated."

Notice how none of those sentences felt robotic? That is the power of verb collocations. They connect your thoughts seamlessly.

So, your practice for today is to take the verBS I use next and use them in some sentences, try to use as many as possible in natural, fluid English, and try to spot them in the next English article you read or TV show you watch.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast, keep practicing and see you soon at podcasts with English for French.

Cheers