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

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 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 come, COME, collocations with the word come, 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 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 gonna 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 will 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 yes, sometimes people need 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, you know, if it's been raining hard for a couple of days,

and before that it was a very dry period on the ground was hard and everything looks dead.

Suddenly, with that rain, everything comes to life, the grass starts to look greener,

and 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 wear 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 his friends and sleeps late

the next day and about two o'clock. So look who's come to life meaning Look who's awake

and finally has got up on is going to share the rest of the day with us. So to come to

life, something is more active now.

Okay, some animals in our animal kingdom only come to life at nighttime. Owls, for example.

Yeah, who are those the hours so they come to life at nighttime and they go hunting at

nighttime. 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 in you might have heard me 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 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 showing their

intentions that they're not there to fight. They lay down their weapons, and they say

they come in peace or to come in peace is to make peace, to discuss peace, to end to

whatever fighting they had never used to last so long, but they would use the expression

we come in peace. Okay, so two come in 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 of somebody has been having a disagreement with their colleagues Look, don't worry, I

come in peace. So you are not here to have another row 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 well, 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 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 you're talking about the strategy that

you're going to use, what advertising you're going to do, and as somebody asked 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 use it? 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, that 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 people over

a certain age, and somebody says, Well, you know, we've we've vaccinated that people are

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, in 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. But 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? I mean, we've got them this last year in the last the previous

year, we got them that. So 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 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 programmes if there's been a serious crime

committed, like a murder or robbery, and they're looking, of course, as always, for witnesses

to these events, so they talk to people involved in the bank or in the shop where the incident

happened, or they do what they call a door to door inquiries. And then 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 maybe 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 return they were reading the newspaper saw the reference to

this person of this particular case and it reminded them of something. So they thought

they better contact the police. So they call the police department they go to speak to

them said, well, on this particular night, I remember I was driving out heading to the

airport, I saw somebody leaving this building on, they looked a little bit suspicious, bla

bla bla 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 sort of come to light as something that was hidden,

something that may have been forgotten about, but it has come to light, and 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, somebody has been playing a prank on some of the teachers,

whatever it might be.

And at the weekly assembly of they have an assembly in the hall, the headmaster stands

up in front of the children's head, some information has come to light that would suggest that

some of our students have been playing pranks on the teachers. Fortunately for us, CC TV

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 schoolchildren a little bit

who worried that they are the guilty party sought to come to light.

So come up trumps not Donald Trump come up trumps means when you're successful. Yeah,

to come up trumps means something that you're 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 investments 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 is paid off and it's really come up trumps.

So to come up trumps means you've been successful the work the effort you've done and put into

it has paid off. Now, 'trumps' is a word we often use when we're playing card games. A

trump card is the best card it trumps it beats everything else.

So it does derive from that the game of cards but when we use 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, well, 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's what makes us feel a little bit guilty. So we decided 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. Hmmm, it wasn't me. That down and after

they said okay, look, it was me as feeling a little peckish. So it took the cake, but

you blame the kids or no, but it was on your job. 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 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 than for us 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 to come clean.

To come of age. This is different meanings in different countries. But from 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 are 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 pic Do you have 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 their parents gave them that the key of the house

now today in the modern world, they might actually give them the key of the of the car.

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 foot. 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 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 have come a long way. Well, quite literally to have come a

long way means a distance, you've travelled 200 kilometres to get here. So you've, you've

come a long way. But this has a slightly different meaning when somebody has come along way,

it means that they have perhaps matured, yeah, they have improved in their workload, they

have developed in their career, whatever that might mean.

They've started off in a lower position. And they've 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 chairman, 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 virtually

running the business. So we're so happy to have you here. So you've really come a long

way.

Or perhaps his 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 and 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 and say, Yes, this city or

country has really come a long way. So people can come a long way in terms of that 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 reside can come

a long way in 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 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've got

to make that presentation, you got to meet these people, you've got to go home and look

after the kids go 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 and 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 a 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. Alright.

And again, it's one of those fixed expressions, not whether I'm going to comment, it's whether

I'm coming or going. Okay, so there's a nice list of expressions, some of them fixed all

to do with collocations about come, okay, let me go down to 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. Okay, well hopefully you enjoyed

it. Hopefully you get a chance to use some of those if you want to contact me, but do

so on www.englishlessonviaskype.com. Always happy to hear from you. Always willing, and

hopefully listen to some ideas and suggestions that you have. That's where this collocation

have come 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

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