Unintuitive collocations

I’ve bought this book. For the most part it’s okay, it would have been better if the author collaborated with a native English speaker to put down examples that an English would want to say but would be phrased differently in Japanese. Additionally, the organization of the book is not the easiest to deal with. For example, an index of words/expressions was not included in the book which means you have to search through the book, which is organized by categories (home, people, daily life), to try to find a specific example.

The collocations included do seem to be useful.

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I am buying this now. Looks super helpful!

Edit: No, I’m not. Guess I’m feeling tight-fisted today. But I’m keeping it in my cart for now.

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Huh. Until this thread, I would have guessed all collocations were colloquialisms. (I had never heard the term before.) This has led me to some research, and new knowledge about my own language and language in general. Thanks, Leebo!

It turns out, not all collocations are colloquialisms. Though I still wonder if most or all colloquialisms would be considered collocations.

Dictionary definitions

From the Cambridge dictionary:

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Links:
COLLOCATION | meaning, definition in Cambridge English Dictionary
COLLOQUIALISM | meaning, definition in Cambridge English Dictionary
Collocation Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster and Colloquialism Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

Originally I put “Collocation vs. Colloquialism” into Google, and didn’t wind up finding anything satisfying.

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I would say that all colloquialisms would have to be collocations by default (at least to whatever subset of people who use them).

But obviously not every collocation is a colloquialism. Some collocations are very formal, like “we are gathered here today…”.

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*nods* Those were essentially my thoughts. Especially when the Cambridge definition of colloquialism says they “wouldn’t be used in writing” (which I think is a fallacy regarding modern literature, but probably shouldn’t be used in formal writing such as research papers and theses and so on), whereas you see collocations used all the time even in classic literature.

I find it fascinating that even as an avid reader, I hadn’t heard or seen the word collocation until yesterday evening when I first saw your thread pop up.

Great thread. I’m going to use it to post collocations that catch my eye as I run into them.

息が合う
”to work together smoothly"

息の合った
“well coordinated”
-Same phrase, but in subordinate clause form acting prenominally (が gets replaced with の)

If you’re doing some exercises as a group, or just trying to lift something up everyone’s breath will naturally become synchronized with the effort, so that might be the origin of the phrase. I don’t know if that’s actually where it came from, it’s just my speculation. 息 has a secondary meaning of mood so maybe it has more to do with everyone’s mood suiting each other than actual breathing.

Also, since you guys are discussing colloquialisms vs collocations, I’d like to throw in the related term “dead metaphor.” Many collocations were originally metaphors that have since “died” from overuse, meaning they have lost their metaphorical purpose and have simply gained a new definition as a phrase.

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出る has a lot of meanings so I feel it can in unintuitive pretty often…

試合に出る (しあいにでる) to participate in a game.
I was so confused last year whenever my teachers were asking me if I was participating in the sports day matches

映画に出る (えいがにでる) to appear in a movie
As in X actor is appearing in Y movie.

相談に乗る (そうだんにのる) to (listen and then) give advice

One of my school’s textbooks has a lot of these kinds of things so I am going to look through it a bit.

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好きにして - do what you want
話がある - we need to talk
子供を作る - to have a child

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This one makes sense, but a native English speaker would never guess it.

夢を見る - to dream

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I came across this one in the dictionary, so I don’t know how often it’s used:
満点を取る - to get full marks

Yeah, 取る is used for earning points.

So you can say 100点を取った to say the same thing another way. (assuming the test was out of 100 points)

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When speaking to a friend over skype, his computer froze. When he got back online, he mentioned that it has been happening more and more recently. Then he said this: もっと頻繁にフリーズしだすと買い換えなければなりません。(もっとひんぱんにフリーズしだすとかいかえなければなりません). Translation: If it freezes more frequently, I will have to buy a replacement.

I asked him why he used 買い換える rather than just 買う. He said if you buy something to replace something you already have, you should use 買い換える. In essence, the meaning of the phrase itself makes since once explained, but it’s counter-intuitive because I would’ve mostly likely used 新しいのXを買う instead of Xを買い換える.

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That’s neat. It’s one of the things I find interesting about Japanese, the way verbs are combined to more precisely describe an action. It’s sometimes surprising to me, too, because even when the meaning is easily intuited, as an English speaker it’s an unexpected way of saying it (I guess because in English one verb can’t really modify another in that way). As I’ve started trying to read more, this is something I’ve been noticing more and really enjoy–though it can make literal translations sound super awkward and non-literal translations feel imprecise.

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@Caracal I find that these combined verbs remind me of the phrasal verbs often used English (look up, throw out, take away, etc.). Obtaining mastery of the most common ones will definitely take one’s language skills up another level. That’s why this thread is really useful. (Sorry for the aside everyone!)

To make up for this, here’s some collocations I learned about pertaining to getting dressed. Since the verbs vary depending on what you’re doing. It’s not really intuitive from an English perspective.

Putting on tops, coats, and jackets を着る(きる)
Putting on bottoms (e.g., pants, shorts, skirts) and socks を履く(はく)
Taking off tops, coats, jackets, bottoms, and shoes を脱ぐ(ぬぐ)

However,
Putting on underwear をつける
Taking off underwear をとる

Changing clothes in general is 着替える(きがえる)
But specifically:
Changing a top を着替える
Changing lower body clothing を履き替える(はきかえる)
Changing underwear を替える(かえる)

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this is normal especially for electronic appliances~ even if they not replaced and buy secondary machine to run alongside existing machine (additional machine) 買い換える・買い替える must still used~

example ↓
パソコンの買い替えまたは追加購入予定はありますか?
Do you plan buy additional PC?

but question:
what 買い換える・買い替える if i want says in proper English terms?

here’s my sentence ↓

購入予定はないでも最近パソコンの熱さはとても厳しいなので多分水冷パソコンの買い換える購入予定がある。

and my english composition ↓

i dont plan to buy but since heat of PC is unbearable recently、probably i will buy water cooled PC

or

i dont plan to buy new but since heat of PC is unbearable recently、probably i will buy new water cooled PC

or

i dont plan to change but since heat of PC is unbearable recently、probably i will replace with water cooled PC

can you help me decide which is more natural sentence for english composition?

besides sorry for hijacking this collocation thread~ here’s some common collocation for my apologize~~~ ↓

外す → unfasten something like belt、make it not tight
取れる →become removed、like parts of toys come off・removed
おむつを当てる →to put (for diaper)
乗り換える →i dont know why is transfer in english, but it actually just change from one train to another train

thank you before~♪

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I didn’t know that about buying additional items. Thanks for mentioning that!

Depending on the context, it could be written different ways. Staying close to how you’ve already phrased it, here’s how it could be written:

I don’t plan on buying one (a new computer), but since my PC has been running (so) hot recently, I may (might) buy a water-cooled PC.

or

I don’t have plans to buy a new one…I may (might) get a water-cooled PC.

If you went out to just look, but changed your mind at the moment you said that, perhaps saying this would be more natural:

I didn’t plan on buying a new one, but … I’ll probably buy (get) a water-cooled PC.

EDIT: all the boldfaced verbs in your composition should be fine for the purpose you’re using them for, but you may have to tweak their aspect (e.g., changing them into gerunds “-ing”) to get them to sound more fluid.

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Well, we say transfer most often I think. “Transfer at Shibuya Station”. You can say “Change trains” too, but transfer can be used for other forms of transportation too, such as buses.

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I know this wasn’t exactly what you were askking about, but the first thing you should change in the English sentence is where you say “I don’t plan to buy…” It sounds like you are contradicting yourself, saying you don’t plan to buy a computer, but then saying you are going to buy a new one,

Instead, you should say, “I wasn’t planning to buy a new computer…”, meaning that you didn’t want or intend to buy a new computer, but now you realize you might need to, because your current computer overheats.

Otherwise, you could just say “buy,” and from the context it’s clear you are buying the water-cooled PC to replace your old one. If you want to translate more directly, you can say, “I wasn’t planning to buy a new PC, but since the heat of my PC is unbearable recently, I will probably replace it with a water-cooled PC.” Or, “…I will probably buy a water-cooled PC to replace it.”

And rather than saying “the heat of my PC is unbearable recently,” it sounds more natural to say, “but since my PC has been overheating recently” or “but since my PC has been getting too hot recently…”

Edit: Looks like someone already answered, but more explanations never hurt.

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this is new and good to know!! because i think transfer usually for moving something like transfer money、sending data (data transfer) etc~
thanks for explaining 「transfer」 usage for public transportation ~

actually i dont know gerund is it ( ˙ө˙) so probably i’ll looking up in dictionary、and off course thank you for your explanation、it’s help me to understand better for phrasing something~♪

your explanation is useful too~ actually both of explanation is great and extra knowledge is welcome~♡

16799004@2x
thank you all~♪

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