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One of the key concepts in expanding your vocabulary efficiently is collocation. Collocation is most easily defined as the way words combine together. For example, just taken from the front page of the financial press are some key phrases:
trade talks/ farm subsidies/ widespread pessimism/ political will
As you might be able to guess, the story involved the latest round of talks involving the World Trade Organisation. The pairs of words highlighted above are all predictable combinations of words. In other words, native speakers recognise that these pairs regularly go together and after hearing or reading one of them, they will often expect or predict the other. This makes reading and listening quicker and more efficient.
For example, widespread and pessimism are commonly used together and would reveal a sophisticated knowledge of the language. Have a look at the words on the left and right and see if you can match the word partnerships:
| unfair |
accountancy |
| foot |
dismissal |
| creative |
assets |
| cash |
handshake |
| liquid |
flow |
| golden |
the bill |
Hopefully, you linked up the following:
unfair dismissal, foot the bill, creative accountancy, liquid assets, cash flow and golden handshake.
An effective way of learning these business collocations is to highlight these kinds of partnerships when you come across them in an article. Here is an example from last Friday’s The Star:
Japanese electronics giant Sony reported yesterday a better-than-expected 68% jump in full-year operating profit as it enjoyed a dramatic recovery in its fortune.
At the same time, however, restructuring costs weighed heavily on the group’s bottom line with net profit falling ... – AFP
Even in such a short text, there is a good number of word partnerships. Note that these partnerships can be any combination of noun + noun, verb + noun, adjective + noun, verb + adverb as in the examples above.
A big step towards mastery is highlighting, recording and remembering these partnerships for instant retrieval later. In business, there are some key words such as job which have a wide range of collocations: apply for, create, get, hold, hunt for, lose and take up.
Another interesting area of vocabulary is the use of metaphors in business English. For example, in the world of finance, the metaphor of liquid is common. Look at the sentences below and try filling in the gaps with a word associated with liquid.
- Without selling some of his assets, there could be no improvement in his cash ( ).
- If we ( ) our resources, we can buy that land.
- The concept that reducing the taxes of the wealthy will cause wealth to ( ) down to the poor is controversial.
- Recently, the market has been ( ) with imitation branded goods.
- The cost of his mortgage was a ( ) on his resources.
The answers are flow, pool, trickle, flooded, and drain.
You can expand your vocabulary by noticing collocations and thinking metaphorically.
Guy Perring is Director, Professional Development Unit (PDU), at the British Council Malaysia. The PDU offers a wide range of learning opportunities from management and communication skills training to developing English skills. Contact the British Council in Kuala Lumpur at 03-2723 7900 or Penang at 04-263 0330 or visit www.britishcouncil.org.my
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