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, Founder & Publisher · How we write our lessons

45 A1 English collocations grouped into 15 verb families — have, wear, go and others — with the nouns each verb takes.
The 45 pairs on this page, grouped by the verb that carries them. At A1 the load sits on have, wear, go — which is the useful thing to notice: a small set of verbs does most of the work, and a different set does it at each level.

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.

Check yourself: 10 A1 collocation questions

Every question is a whole sentence, because a collocation is only wrong in context. The reason is given for each answer.

  1. Can you ___ a photo of us in front of the castle?

    • do
    • give
    • take
    • make
    Show answer

    take — English takes photos. Make and do never partner photo.

  2. We ___ football in the park every Saturday.

    • do
    • make
    • go
    • play
    Show answer

    play — Play goes with games and instruments: play football, play the guitar.

  3. My brother ___ to school by bus.

    • goes
    • plays
    • makes
    • has
    Show answer

    goes — Go is the verb for travelling to a place: go to school, go to work.

  4. I ___ my homework straight after dinner.

    • take
    • do
    • make
    • play
    Show answer

    do — You do homework and do the washing-up. Make is for things you create.

  5. She ___ glasses for reading.

    • holds
    • dresses
    • wears
    • puts
    Show answer

    wears — Wear partners clothing and anything you have on your body — glasses included.

  6. They ___ a big party for her birthday.

    • played
    • went
    • wore
    • had
    Show answer

    had — Have partners events: have a party, have an exam, have a meeting.

  7. I ___ bread and cheese for breakfast every day. (e___)

    Show answer

    eat — Eat partners solid food; drink partners liquids.

  8. Can I ___ a photo of the garden? (t___)

    Show answer

    take — Take is the only verb English uses with photo.

  9. My grandparents ___ cards every evening. (p___)

    Show answer

    play — Play partners games — cards, chess, football.

  10. I always ___ a hat in the sun. (w___)

    Show answer

    wear — Wear partners anything you put on your body.

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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