I know. We repeat ourselves. We write about collocations over and over again. Our excuse? Time goes in circles. It’s a new year, a new circle. Let’s face the sad truth: collocations are unavoidable, just like new years and just like the doubts we have about correct collocations!
Most learners of English, here in Spain, get frustrated when having to use “do” or “make”, as both words have the same translation into Spanish. So today we are going to study one specific collocation: TO MAKE A LIST.
“That one is easy”, you’d say, “It’s one of the first studied at elementary school or sometimes even at pre-school”. Good. So we’ve got that. It’s easy. The collocation is easy, but what about the actual list writing?
One of the most frequent activities at the end of one and the beginning of another year is to resume and plan. Lists are made on the most watched movies of the past year, the most widely read books, the most seen YouTube videos, the classiest hotel rooms, the craziest stunts, the best holiday destinations , etc.
These are just some of the lists made and published, exclusively focusing on THE BEST, as the worst of our world shouldn’t yet be mentioned. After all, we are still digesting the holiday season.
For the same reason (holidays), we don’t question much the objectivity of these opinions. After all, the glass of red wine in our hand makes the year we’ve left behind seem a pretty blurred.
After browsing through and often laughing out loud at the best of what’s over, we can then decide on our hopes and dreams for the future. MAKING PLANS involves making another list, the well-known “New Year’s Resolution list 2016”.
As a teacher , I usually make this list in September. Doesn’t really make any difference. One has the freedom to choose when to make a new start , at least mentally. Feel free to make yourself happy or disappoint yourself whenever you please.
So, most of us just “copy” our last year’s list, and some decide to finally take action, but the sad truth is that resolutions are made, but not kept. The fact that we haven’t managed to change at all or have made very few or insignificant changes, will never ever discourage us from making a new list at the end of the year.
Here, at Idiomestarradellas, we hope that learning and improving your level of English will always stay on your New year’s resolution list.
Cheers!
Don’t forget to check out these lists!
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/dec/29/best-read-travel-stories-of-2015
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/best-in-travel
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/?year=2015