Professional Collocations in Practice

What Are Collocations?

At its core, a collocation is a pair or group of words that just "sounds right" to a native or proficient speaker. For example, we say 'heavy rain', not 'strong rain'. The same principle applies to business English. Using the wrong word combination, even if the meaning is understandable, can make your writing sound awkward.

The short video clip below offers a perfect explanation of why collocations are so important for sounding natural.

As you can see, choosing 'build' over 'raise' is what makes the phrase sound professional. Your goal is to internalize these natural pairings for your own writing.

The image below shows some common business collocations you might see in a general office context. These are the kinds of phrases we will be mastering.

This image shows three bingo cards with various business collocations, such as 'chair a meeting', 'meet a deadline', and 'boost revenue'.

Building Your Bank of Professional Collocations

To make your board and shareholder communications more impactful, we will focus on collocations built around strong, professional verbs. These verbs act as pillars, and learning the nouns that typically follow them will significantly improve your writing.

The resource below provides an excellent list of such "power verbs" and their common collocations.

Collocations for Your Specific Context

Beyond general business language, your role requires a more specialized vocabulary related to corporate governance, contracts, and legal matters. Using the correct collocations in these areas is not just a matter of style—it's a matter of precision and accuracy.

This next resource, an e-book on collocations, contains sections that are highly relevant to your work.

Collocations for Communication and Problem-Solving

Finally, a significant part of your role involves communicating decisions, addressing issues, and managing expectations. There are specific collocations that make these interactions smoother and more professional.

This video focuses on collocations used in professional communication.

Your Turn: Putting It into Practice

Now, let's apply what you've learned. Rewrite the following sentences to include a more natural and professional collocation from this lesson.

1. The committee was unable to make a decision on the matter.
2. Following the audit, we must put in place the new guidelines by next month.
3. The CEO will give a short talk on the quarterly results before the meeting.
4. Management has a responsibility to answer the worries of the employees regarding the merger.

Conclusion

In this lesson, you've taken the next step toward professional polish by focusing on collocations. You learned that writing with fluency and authority isn't just about individual words, but about how they fit together naturally.

Here are your key takeaways:

• Collocations create fluency: Using word combinations that sound natural (e.g., 'implement a plan', not 'do a plan') is a hallmark of a proficient writer.
• Build around strong verbs: Verbs like implement, resolve, identify, and address are powerful starting points for many important business collocations.
• Context is key: The most effective collocations are specific to your field. Phrases like 'uphold the law' and 'sign a contract' add precision to your work in a company secretarial context.
• Practice makes perfect: Actively look for and use these collocations in your daily writing until they become second nature.

You now have a framework for choosing not just the right words, but the right word partnerships. In our next lesson, we will learn how to connect these phrases and ideas logically using professional transition words and phrases to improve the overall flow of your emails and reports.