The SMART way to improve your English vocabulary | Learn Collocations with COME

[Music] hi there this is harry and welcome back to my lessons where i try to help you to get a better understanding of the english language and hopefully i give you some help along the way where you can be able to communicate better you can understand it better when you read a magazine article or newspaper or you're listening to something or even if you're getting ready and preparing yourself for some english test all of this will will come in handy and will certainly help you at the end of the particular lesson i'm going to give you my contact details for you or if there's any person you know that might benefit from what we're doing certainly share my contact details with them and as always i would appreciate it greatly if you could subscribe to our channel and you can download and listen to the podcast wherever you may be okay so this is all helpful english i hope and what we have for you today is a lesson about collocations and in particular we're talking about collocations with the word com c-o-m-e co-location of the word com a lot of people get confused and they've asked me to give a little bit of a mention to this and how we can use it okay so what i'm going to do is go down through each of them one by one and then i'll go back over them and give you some examples okay let's get started come to life come in peace come into play come to mind come to light come up trumps not donald trump come up trumps come clean come of age have come a long way and finally not know whether you are coming or going not know whether you're coming or going okay so i'm going to go through them explain it and hopefully give you an example and again if you don't understand it go back over it listen to it a second time it'll probably help you or indeed write to me and i'll try to explain it in a little bit more detail if i can but usually the examples are sufficient so know sometimes people need to to listen to it a couple of times just to make sure they understand that exactly what i'm saying okay so let's look at the first one come to life okay well lots of things can come to life okay so um you know if it's been raining hard for a couple of days and before that it was a very dry period and the ground was hard and everything looks dead suddenly with that rain everything comes to life the grass starts to look greener yeah the shoots of the plants you've planted look better the buds on the flowers look fresher so everything comes to life so you can where you effectively breathe life into something or you could use it in a funny way when you know your one of your kids has been sick or maybe one of the older kids has been out on the town with these friends and sleeps late the next day and at about two o'clock so ah look who's come to life meaning look who's awake and finally has got up and is going to share the rest of the day with us just so to come to life something is more active yeah okay some animals in our animal kingdom only come to life at night time owls for example yeah yeah those the owl so they come to life at night time and they go hunting at night time and a lot of other animals instinctively come to life at nighttime or after the long winter a lot of animals who have been hibernating like the bears they come to life when they hear the sounds of spring or the snow begins to thaw and melt and they get that breath of fresh air and they come to life okay to come in peace but if you are interested and you might have heard me uh if you've listened to some of my lessons in the past that i'm a great fan of the old western movies i really love them i love to watch them again but if you looked at the old western movies when they were trying to negotiate settlement with the native uh american indian tribes they would often use the expression to come in peace okay so they either wave a white flag or they have some other way of of showing their intentions that they're not there to fight they lay down their weapons and they say they come in peace so common piece is to make peace to discuss peaceful end to whatever fighting they had and never used to last so long but they would use the expression we come in peace okay so to common peace means to greet the other party that you might have been fighting with in a way that will end hostilities and we can use it you know okay it's not so serious as a war between two countries but if uh somebody's been having a disagreement with their colleagues they'll look don't worry i come in peace yeah so you're not here to have another or have another argument let's have a beer let's put aside our differences and let's work out how we can move forward so you could use it certainly in that context to come in peace come into play but when something comes into play it's now part of whatever the the big plan will be okay so if we look at an example of a some sort of business relationship okay so you're talking to your boss or your colleagues about some marketing strategy so you're about to launch a new product onto the market okay so let's say it's a new soft drink and then you're talking about the strategy that you're going to use what advertising you're going to do and somebody asks the question well what about the segment which market segment are we aiming at are we aiming at young people are we aiming at old people and you say well that will come into play later that will be a part of our plan later on so when something comes into play it's something that we will consider at a later stage or it might come into play now okay so or it may never come into play meaning it's not something we have to consider okay so we use the expression to come into play it means something we have to consider something that we will consider maybe not now but later or in the negative it will not come into play okay so another example would be in the current problems with the pandemic so when they're talking about vaccinations and they have to get vaccinations for all the the people over a certain age and somebody says well you know we've we've vaccinated the people between the ages of 50 and 90 so what do we do next well we're going to have to vaccinate the people between 40 and 49 so all of those people in that age bracket will now come into play meaning we have to work our way down through them and we have to make sure that we have sufficient vaccines to cover everybody and we need to put in those extra orders because we will need to vaccinate the people then between 30 and 39 and three weeks time and if we have a shortage then these problems will come into play meaning we'll have to cancel some vaccinations so coming into play is something that we have to consider something that's going to be important something that's going to affect whatever we happen to be doing to come into play come to mind well when something comes to mind it's something you think of or nothing might come to mind so you can't think of anything so somebody says oh we're trying to plan the christmas and you know as always we have a problem wanting to know and trying to work out what are we going to buy the kids you know we got them this last year and the last the previous year we got them that so what what do you think this year well at the moment nothing comes to mind i can't think of anything but leave it with me for a few days i'll have a look in the room see what they have what's broken what they're talking about i might get a bit of an idea and if something comes to mind i'll let you know to come to mind means a thought something that you didn't think of before but it comes to mind if you watch detective series and detective programs if there's been a serious crime committed like a murder or a robbery and they're looking of course as always for witnesses to these events so they talk to people involved in the the bank or in in the shop where the incident happened or they do what they call a door-to-door inquiries and they introduce themselves and when they're leaving they usually say well look if anything comes to mind if you think of something here's my number please give me a call so if anything comes to mind if you remember something even the smallest detail that might be important please let us know so to come to mind come to light well when something comes to light it means it comes out in the open okay so things that are in the dark that haven't been discovered something secret or something somebody had forgotten about somebody might discover and then this then comes to light okay so if you go back to our detective series so the crime hasn't been solved the criminal has not been arrested and the case is looking a little bit dead so they're trying to find out if they've got any more information and then out of the blue two or three months after the crime has been committed they get a phone call from somebody who had been away for a while and when they returned they were reading a newspaper saw the reference to this particular case and it reminded them of something so they thought they better contact the police so they called the the police department they go to speak to them and said well on this particular night i remember and i was driving out heading to the airport i saw somebody leaving this building and they looked a little bit suspicious blah blah blah blah so they've got some information that might help the police so this information is evidence it might be small but it's evidence that has come to light meaning it has arisen after the event and after their inquiry so to come to light it's something that was hidden something that may have been forgotten about but it has come to light when somebody remembered it okay so when it comes to light it's additional information that previously wasn't known okay so it could be even something simple in a school where the headmaster is trying to solve some problems something's gone missing uh somebody's been playing a prank on some of the teachers whatever it might be and at the weekly assembly if they have an assembly in the hall the headmaster stands up in front of the children said some information has come to light that would suggest that some of our students have been playing pranks on the teachers fortunately for us cctv has identified those who are responsible and we will be talking to them later on so information has come to light some evidence and then of course all the school children a little bit worried that they are the guilty party so to come to light so come up trumps not donald trump come up trumps means when you're successful yeah to come up trump's means something that you were hoping to happen has happened and it's going to be beneficial okay so it might be a lot of effort and work that you've put into some project and all that work has paid off because you've come up trumps your boss has given you a promotion okay so you've come up trumps or some investment you made let's say you bought an old apartment or an old cottage and over a period of months you renovated it you redecorated it and then you decided to put it on the market and you sold it for a really really good price so all the effort and work has paid off and it's really come up trump so to come up with trump's means you've been successful the work the effort you've done and put into it has paid off now trump's is a word we often use when we're playing card games a trump card is the the best card it trumps it beats everything else so it does derive from that the game of cards but when we used to come up trumps means something is paying us a dividend quite literally we're going to get a benefit a bonus a payment something that's going to help us okay to come up trumps to come clean okay when we come clean it means we tell somebody the truth okay when we come clean we want to get something off our chest something that has been bothering us for a while that makes us feel a little bit guilty so we decide to come clean so it might be so simple as you're the person who took the last piece of chocolate cake and somebody wants to know who who ate the cake no it wasn't me not that done and after they said okay look it was me as feeling a little peckish so i took the cake but you blamed the kids oh i know but it was only a joke yeah okay so to come clean or a lot more serious when the police are examining a situation they know they have a suspect somebody that they feel is responsible but they can't pin it on him but they say look i think it would be in your best interest if you come clean if you tell us that you did it and how you did it well then we'll put in a good word for you to the the judge and perhaps he will go easy and the punishment won't be as severe but if you don't come clean and we later find out that you are responsible well then there's no deal okay so better to come clean now then first to find out later when you will be charged okay so to come clean means to admit something you've done and move forward and then no longer feel guilty so to come clean to come of age this is as different meanings in different countries but from the the uk point of view people come of age they used to come of age at the at the age of 21 and it would be a big big birthday celebration and at the age of 21 you used to get presented with the key of the door quite literally so you were old enough to have a key to let yourself in and out of the house so if you see birthday cards and celebrations of people who are 21 often there's a picture of a key a house key somewhere on the card or they present a cake in the shape of a key whatever it might be because this was the reference to them coming of age at the age of 21 and the parents gave them the key of the house now today in the modern world they might actually give them the key of the of the car yeah but normally it's the key of the house so coming of age is when people are deemed or believed to be sufficiently mature that they can be relied upon that they are taking responsibility so it could be 18 it could be 16 but and traditionally it happened to be 21 but in the modern world i think the age has come down a little bit but coming of age means to be responsible to take responsibility for your actions to be relied upon to be reliable and to to be a man or a woman or to act in a mature way so to come of age and then the next one is to to have come a long way well quite literally to come a long way means a distance you've traveled 200 kilometers to get here so you've you've come a long way but this has a slightly different meaning when somebody has come a long way it means that they have perhaps matured yeah they have improved in their workload they have developed in their career whatever it might mean is they've started off in a lower position and have come to a better position okay so they started off at the bottom in the company and they've worked their way up and after 15 years and sitting down with the the chairman he said oh you've really come a long way i remember when you walked into this company the first day but look at you now you're you're virtually running the business so we are so happy to have you here so you've really come a long way or perhaps this city the development within the city has come a long way you remember it 20 years ago and then you moved away from the city you went to live in another country and when you came back finally to resettle or to put your roots down again in the city of your birth you look around and say wow this city has really come a long way look at all the development a really fancy metro system a really good road network beautiful buildings no slums whatever it might be you can point to it and say yes this city or country has really come a long way so people can come a long way in terms of their personal development people can come a long way in terms of their educational development in terms of their work experience but cities and other things where we we um reside can come a long way and how they have been developed okay and finally then we've got not to know whether you're coming or going not to know whether you're coming or going so if you don't know whether you're com coming or going what it literally means is you haven't a clue yeah i have no idea so i'm completely confused i don't know whether i'm coming or going so it could have been one of those days or weeks when you're just running around from here to there as we say in english from pillar to post you're you're doing this here you're doing that there you're going to make that presentation you've got to meet these people you've got to go home and look after the kids got to visit the doctor whatever it happens to be you're really up to your eyes and work and you sit down on a friday evening he said you know what i don't know whether i'm coming or going i've had so much to do i don't know whether i'm there or here or what i'm doing tomorrow what i really need is just to kick off my shoes put my feet up relax for a few hours forget about all this work because in reality i don't know whether i'm coming or going all right and again it's one of those fixed expressions not whether i'm going or coming it's whether i'm coming or going okay so there's a a nice list of expressions some of them fixed all to do with collocations about com okay let me go down through them one more time come to life come in peace come into play come to mind come to light come up trumps come clean come of age someone has come a long way and then finally not know whether you are coming or going so as i said collocations with the word com okay hopefully you enjoyed it hopefully you get a chance to use some of those if you want to contact me well do so on www.englishlessonviaskype.com always happy to hear from you always willing and hopefully listen to some ideas some suggestions that you have that's where this collocation of com came from so you give it to me i'll put my little spin on it i'll present it to you and hopefully it will help you to improve your english and as i said don't forget to subscribe to the channel and you can listen to the podcast okay thanks for listening join me again soon

Channel: Learn English with Harry

Views: 172,591

Keywords: english collocations, collocations in english, english collocations in use, collocations with come, speak better english with harry, learn English with harry, English with Harry, smart way to improve, the smart way to improve your english, speak English fluently and naturally, fixed English expressions, start speaking like a native speaker, tips to remember english vocabulary, learn english, common collocations, come up trumps meaning

Id: 4j5HJ6L25yM

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 03 2021