Words families & collocations
Word families refer to groups of words that share the same root or stem word, but have different suffixes or prefixes added to create new words. Understanding word families can help improve vocabulary, language skills and spelling, as it allows for the recognition of patterns and the ability to guess the meanings of new words.
Example with "Tech" as the Stem:
The stem "Tech" comes from the word Greek word meaning ‘hand’ and can be used to form various words within a common family. Here are some examples:
- Technological: This adjective refers to the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes (e.g. "technological advancements").
- Technician: This noun refers to a skilled worker in a specific field, such as a computer technician or a dental technician.
- Technophile: This noun refers to someone who is enthusiastic about technology and enjoys using it.
- Technophobe: This noun refers to someone who is fearful or hesitant to use technology.
- Technique: This noun refers to a method of doing something.
- Techno: This noun refers to a type of dance music produced by the use of music technology, such as samplers, synths and computers.
By exploring the word family of "Tech," you can easily recognize and understand other words that are derived from this root and gain insight into their meaning. Try it for yourself with other roots.
Words, like people, often hang out together and have ‘friends’ that they are commonly seen with. This habitual partnering of words is sometime referred to a ‘collocation’. Collocation can be used to describe grammatical patterns or common combinations of words. As a result, it is sometimes more useful to learn vocabulary in chunks, rather than analyse individual words and sentence grammar. Keeping a record and becoming aware of these combinations of words can lead to more accurate and comprehensible communication of your message when it comes to academic writing.
Collocations can be composed of words that are grammatically related, and these combinations can be located by referring to a good dictionary. Collocations are an important aspect of language learning and understanding, as they can help to improve vocabulary choice, allow idiomatic expressions, and promote overall fluency and naturalness in a language.
Here are some examples of different grammatical collocations:
Verb/noun Take a photo, make trouble, fix a drink
Adjective/noun Strong coffee, heavy rain, glorious sunshine
Adverb/adjective Heavily built, brightly coloured, smartly dressed
Adjective/preposition Good at, interested in, fed up with, tired of, distracted by
Try to develop strategies so that you can notice the words that go together and follow the patterns given (for example, which preposition to use with a particular phrase). You could also use built in grammar checks or add on apps to check this type of language use when you proofread your assignment before submission (for example, Grammarly, Word Spell Check).
Listening back to your writing by using text to speech apps (eg. in Word) can help with questions relating to naturalness and flow. If something sounds unnatural or confusing, re-phrase what you have written until you feel satisfied with the result.
