30-Day Challenge Collocations 1

"I can speak English but I don't sound natural and I translate in my head."

I remember once, when I was studying French at university, my French professor said to me, "your writing is all correct, but it just doesn't sound French! I can't give you a good mark."

I was really shocked! I'd tried hard to get everything correct. But my choice of words in French just wasn't natural and I didn't know how to fix the problem.

Later, when I was studying linguistics at Cambridge (where I focused on the psychology of how adults learn foreign languages), I found the answer! The answer was collocations.

What's a collocation?

A collocation is a group of words that often go together, like 'make a mistake' or 'heavy rain' or 'a slim book' or 'solve a problem'.

If you translate each word from your language, it's easy to say something like 'do a mistake' or 'big rain' or 'a thin book' or 'improve a problem'.

All of these are grammatically correct! But they're not what native English speakers say.

If we learn collocations, we solve two problems.

1: We sound natural, because we don't choose words that are translations of our own language, instead of what English speakers usually say.

2: We speak more quickly and easily, because we've learned whole phrases that make it easier to speak without thinking.

In this challenge, we'll learn 150 English collocations.

There won't be very many new words. Instead, you'll learn how to use words in groups.

We'll also use scientific techniques to help you remember the groups of words, so that you don't go back to word-for-word translations.

At the end of the challenge, you'll be able to use the collocations without thinking.

You'll translate less.

And your English will really sound more natural!

How it works

• We start on the 1st of October.

• You get one lesson every day for 30 days.

• In each lesson, we'll learn 5 new collocations - 150 in total.

• These collocations are really useful and will help you sound natural in English.

• The lessons include a video, interactive exercise, PDFs and flashcards.

• You can do the lessons whenever you want, on your computer, tablet or phone.

• We'll also learn techniques to help you remember vocabulary. You can use the techniques with any new words in the future.

• The challenge is yours forever, so don't worry if you don't finish everything in October.

• You can ask questions by email or in the comments of the course and we'll help you.