Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English

　　 　　preface in recent years, teachers and students have become increasingly aware of the importance of collocation in english language learning. however, no matter how convinced learners are in principle of the importance of collocation, it is difficult for them to put these principles into practice without the benetlt of an up-to-date, corpus-based dictionary of collocations. we at oxford university press were determined to provide such a dictionary but it has taken us many years to produce the dictionary that we feel best meets the needs of students and teachers. over the years, a large number of lexicographers and editors have been involved in this project and i wish to take this opportunity to thank them all for the contributions they have made. in particular, i wish to thank the three managiug editors, sheila digmen, jonathan crowther and diana lea. the managing editors worked on the policy for this dictionary, striving to ensure that it was in its design as helpful and accessible to users as possible. in the introduction that follows, diana lea explains the principles that were established throughconsultation and experiment to determine which collocates to include and where they should be listed, it is our hope that this dictionary will provide you with invaluable assistance in expressing your ideas cogently in idiomatic english. ifyou wish to explore the dictionary's potential as a learning tool, you will find the guide to the entries (.page xii.xiii ) and the study paps (between pages 446 and 447) very helpful.moire runciejonuary 2002