Collocations & Light Verbs

Here is one of the friendliest facts about the C-test: German loves to travel in pairs. Certain words simply belong together, so reliably that native speakers treat them as a single unit. If one half of the pair is on the page, the other half is nearly locked in. That is exactly what you want in a gap.

In this article we walk through the four partnership types that show up most often at B1 to C1 level: light verb constructions (Funktionsverbgefüge), noun-verb collocations, adjective-noun collocations, and verb-preposition pairs. For each one you get a full reference table plus a chance to try it. Learn the pairs as pairs, and a whole class of gaps stops being guesswork.

Quick rule: Fixed word pairs are solved as a pair: recall verb + noun together (eine Rolle spielen, zur Verfügung stellen). The gap is almost always testing the fixed partner.

What a Collocation Actually Is

A collocation is a combination of words that regularly occur together. eine Entscheidung treffen (to make a decision) is a collocation: you treffen a decision, you do not machen it. The English word "make" tempts you toward machen, but German has already decided on treffen, and it will not budge.

For the C-test this is gold. When you see Entscheidung nearby and a gap on the verb, you do not need to understand the whole text. The partnership tells you the answer. At B2/C1 level a noticeable share of gaps can be solved this way, purely by recognising a fixed pair.

Funktionsverbgefüge (FVG): The Idea

A Funktionsverbgefüge, or light verb construction, is a special kind of collocation: a fixed pairing of a nearly empty verb with a nominal phrase. The verb is grammatically required but carries almost no meaning of its own. The content sits in the noun.

Take zur Verfügung stellen (to make available). The verb stellen means almost nothing here; the meaning lives in Verfügung. The most productive light verbs in German are stellen, nehmen, ziehen, bringen, setzen, machen, treffen, and leisten. The moment you spot one of these near a gap in a noun slot, check for an FVG before inventing a new word.

The Core Light Verbs and Their FVG

The first table with the three most common light verbs covers the B1 core. The second table is a C1 extension: if B2 is your target, feel free to skim it.

The table below groups the highest-frequency FVG by their light verb. Read each row as one unit: the verb and the noun are married.

Try the principle on one example right away, before the table continues. In the sentence below the light verb setzen sits at the end, and the prepositional frame in ... setzen points to exactly one noun.

The frame in ... setzen combined with the stub Ga can only be Gang: in Gang setzen means to set something in motion. You did not have to read the rest of the sentence to know it.

The table continues with the remaining light verbs:

C1 extension: in Erwägung ziehen, Bilanz ziehen, außer Kraft setzen, Rechnung tragen, in Kauf nehmen. Useful for near-native fluency, not required for the B1 entry level.

Do not memorise these as loose vocabulary. Memorise the pattern: a fixed noun plus its one correct verb.

Back to the very first light verb in the table above: stellen forms one of the most frequent FVG with zur Verfügung. Pick the right ending from the word bank.

Match each noun phrase to its fixed light verb:

Noun-Verb Collocations

A realistic pace: about 5 pairs a day for two weeks, and the most common ones will stick.

Beyond the light verbs, everyday academic German is full of noun-verb pairs where the verb is the natural, expected partner. If the noun is visible and the verb has the gap (or the other way round), the pair decides the answer.

Here the noun Entscheidung is showing, and the verb carries the gap. The partnership answers for you.

Match each noun to its natural verb partner:

Adjective-Noun Collocations

Some adjectives collocate so tightly with a small set of nouns that seeing one half hands you the other. These flood B2/C1 texts on society, environment, and economics.

When the adjective is on the page, the noun is often the gap, and the pair removes the doubt.

weitreichend almost exclusively partners with Konsequenzen, Folgen, or Auswirkungen. With the stub Konseq the choice is settled: Konsequenzen.

Verb and Adjective plus a Fixed Preposition

Many verbs and adjectives govern one fixed preposition. The link is lexical, not logical, so it must be learned per word. In the C-test the deleted half is often the preposition itself, which makes these highly predictable once you know the trigger word. This is the same mechanism as the light-verb constructions and noun-verb pairs above, except here a verb or adjective, not a noun, is the fixed partner.

Three examples show the principle:

The complete list of every verb-preposition pair, case, and example sentence is your reference in Prepositions & Valency:

Prepositions & Valency: Verbs with a Fixed Preposition

Here the trigger verb is abhängen (split as hängt ... ab), and the gap falls on the fixed preposition.

The Quick Decision at the Gap

When a gap sits inside what might be a fixed pair, run this three-step check. It takes a couple of seconds and turns many gaps into near-certainties.

1. Scan the whole clause for a partner: a light verb, a strong noun, an adjective, or a valency verb.
2. Match the partner against the tables above. Ask: what word does this partner always travel with?
3. Fit that word to the visible stub. If the stub matches, you are done.

Try the full routine on this one. The noun Maßnahmen is visible, dringend reinforces it, and the gap is on the verb.

Step 1: the partner is Maßnahmen. Step 2: Maßnahmen travels with ergreifen (or treffen). Step 3: the stub ergre fits ergreifen. Answer: ifen.

Traps to Watch

Translation interference. Your first language will suggest the wrong verb. English "make a decision" pushes machen; the German pair is treffen. English "ask a question" is fine as stellen, but "give a speech" is halten, not geben. Trust the German pair, not the translation.

The preposition is not free. With valency verbs the preposition is fixed and cannot be reasoned out. warten takes auf, never für. If you know the trigger word, do not deliberate over the preposition, just recall it.

Do not overwrite a good stub. The collocation gives you a candidate, but the visible letters have the final word. If your remembered pair does not fit the stub on the page, it is the wrong pair for that gap. Re-scan for a different partner.

Worth remembering

Collocations turn reading comprehension into recognition. You do not decode the sentence; you spot the partnership and let it fill the gap.

Keep these anchors: light verbs (stellen, nehmen, ziehen, bringen, setzen, treffen) signal an FVG; a strong noun like Entscheidung, Frage, or Maßnahmen calls its one verb; adjectives like weitreichend and nachhaltig call their one noun; and valency verbs like abhängen and teilnehmen fix their preposition. Learn the pairs as pairs, run the three-step check, and let German's love of partnerships do the work for you.

An honest budget: reliably recalling the roughly 40 pairs on this page realistically takes about two weeks of regular review, not a weekend. That pays off most if you are already headed toward B2/C1; for a faster A2/B1 win, articles and verb endings come first.

Related reading: vocabulary topic fields are in "Vocabulary Strategy", suffixes and prefixes in "Word Formation: Suffixes", and compound-word seams in "Compound Words".