trouble

Verbs

The two most frequent verbs used with trouble as direct object are take and cause. Both of these are followed by to but…

- take the trouble to do something (infinitive marker)
- cause trouble to someone or something (indirect object marker)

We should also note that the indirect object in cause trouble occurs more frequently between the verb and the direct object.

We can teach the collocating verbs for trouble being subject and trouble the object. In order frequency in the British National corpus,

Trouble as subject

- trouble gets
- trouble starts
- trouble comes
- trouble finds
- trouble begins
- trouble arises

So in the first instance, the collocate is misleading as it is part of the frame, somebody has trouble getting something. This is similar to trouble finds – someone has (no) trouble finding someone or something

the trouble starts/comes when…

trouble begins in

troubles arise in, troubles arise from.

etc

Trouble as object

- take trouble
- cause trouble
- make trouble
- get trouble
- give trouble
- mean trouble
- avoid trouble

Somebody makes trouble for someone

got troubles is usually part of have got troubles, sometimes got troubles with [health]

give [quantity] trouble – end of clause followed by punctuation or conjunction.

It means/meant trouble for someone.

(I mean) the trouble is that

Adjectives

OXFORD Collocations | dictionary for students of English

http://5yiso.appspot.com/search

Noun trouble

ADJ. bad, big, deep, desperate, real, serious

My initial research in the BNC reveals:

bad trouble

8 hits, 0.1 pm

not one sounds like great English

4 fiction

big trouble

47 0.4 pm

to be in, to get in/into,

about half at end of clause

rarely subject

serious subjects and

deep trouble

38 0.3 pm

more than half at end of clause

almost all: to be in

prosody: serious subjects