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A1 · Beginner

A1 English Collocations: The Everyday Word Partners

At A1 the collocations that matter are the ones that decide which verb goes in front of a noun you already know. You know photo; the question is whether you take it, make it or do it. English has already chosen, and the choice is not the one most languages make.

45 collocationsReal example sentencesLinked to the word listsA1 level

Written and reviewed by Vugar Novruzov, Academy Director · How we write our lessons

What changes at A1

A collocation is a pair of words that habitually go together. Nothing about the grammar forces the pairing — make a photo breaks no rule of English syntax — and yet no native speaker says it. That gap between grammatically possible and actually said is where collocation lives, and it opens at A1, well before anyone teaches the word.

For a beginner this is good news, because it means you can sound far more natural than your grammar deserves. There are perhaps forty verb-and-noun pairs that carry most of everyday English, and every one of them is built from words in the A1 word lists you are already studying. Learn the pair rather than the noun and you get the fluency for free.

have + noun

The most overworked verb in beginner English, and the most useful. Have covers possessions, family, illnesses, meals and events, which is why it is the first verb worth collecting partners for.

go + place or activity

Three different patterns hide inside go, and mixing them up is the commonest A1 error. It is go to a place, go by a transport, and go on a holiday — the preposition is part of the collocation, not an afterthought.

play + game or instrument

Play takes games and instruments, and the article differs between them: you play football with no article, but you play the guitar with one. That small difference is fixed and worth copying exactly.

wear + clothing

English uses one verb for putting clothes on your body and keeping them there. Many languages use two, or use a different verb per garment; English does not, which makes this the easiest group on the page.

eat and drink + food

Straightforward, and worth stating anyway: English does not use take for food and drink the way French and several other languages do. You eat a meal and drink a drink.

take + noun

The group that catches everyone. Take is where photographs, taxis and sugar-in-tea all live, and none of those choices is predictable from the meaning of the verb.

do + noun, and the everyday actions

At A1 do has one collocation you cannot avoid — homework — plus the ordinary action verbs that pair with one obvious object each.

What to watch out for

Where these examples come from

Every sentence above is the example already published for that word on our A1 vocabulary lists — the same sentence you will see if you follow the link under it. Nothing on this page was written to demonstrate a collocation; the collocations were selected from what the site already teaches, which is why each one can be followed straight to a full word list with a definition, British pronunciation and flashcards.

That constraint is deliberate. A collocation page built from invented examples would be a second vocabulary set competing with the first, and a learner who met have sister here would have nowhere to go next. Built this way, the 45 pairings on this page are 45 doors into the beginner word lists.

Questions about A1 collocations

What is a collocation, in simple words?

Two or more words that English speakers habitually put together. Take a photo is a collocation; make a photo means the same thing, breaks no grammar rule, and is simply not what anyone says. Learning the pair rather than the single word is what makes you sound natural.

Do I really need collocations at A1?

You are already using them — go to school and have breakfast are collocations. What changes if you notice them is that you start recording the pair instead of the noun, which costs nothing extra and saves you unlearning the wrong verb later.

Why is it “take a photo” and not “make a photo”?

There is no reason that would help you predict it. Collocation is a fact about usage rather than a consequence of meaning, which is exactly why it has to be learned as a fixed pair rather than worked out.

How many collocations should a beginner know?

The groups on this page cover the everyday ground: roughly forty pairs built from the A1 word lists. That is a realistic target for a few weeks, and it covers most of what a beginner needs to say in a day.

Where do these example sentences come from?

Every one is the example sentence already published on our A1 vocabulary lists for that word — the same sentence you will see if you follow the link beside it. Nothing here was written specially for this page.

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