Prevent Avoid Protect

Posted by Pak Guru on November 18th, 2017 | 0 comments | collocation, Indo English, lexis, LR, vocabulary

Indonesia should prevent its resources from the threat of bio-piracy.

Meaning can become distorted or even lost when you translate directly. In this case we have a direct translation of the Indonesian mencegah, which – in many situations – does indeed translate as prevent.
As usual, I strongly advise Indonesian scholars to forget about the grammar here and to think in terms of vocabulary, or lexis. The following lexical options are NOT possible in English:

1. prevent + n + from + n (not  __ing)
2. avoid + n + from + n

Next we have the  ‘good‘ structures. If you like you can click on prevent, protect, and avoid to see examples of these structures.

1. prevent + n
2. prevent + n + from + __ing
3. protect + n
4. protect + n + from + n
5. avoid + n

So which structure is best for the bio-piracy example? Well, all are possible!

1. Indonesia should prevent bio-piracy.
2. Indonesia should prevent bio-piracy from occurring.
3. Indonesia should protect its bio-diversity.
4. Indonesia should protect itself from bio-piracy.
5. Indonesia should avoid bio-piracy.

See also this post for further analysis of avoid.