This study investigated the production of take-noun collocations in essay writings by Korean learners of English as a foreign language. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining quantitative methods such as chi-square tests in R for collocation frequency analysis with qualitative methods. The qualitative analysis was constructed using Chang’s (2018) framework to investigate how both interlingual and intralingual factors influence deviant collocations across various proficiency levels. The study findings showed a significant difference in the use of take-noun and delexical take-noun collocations among the three proficiency levels. The high-level group used these collocations the most, followed by the low and intermediate groups, with care being the most frequent collocate in all groups. Unlike earlier studies that highlighted L1 transfer, the present study identified a significant role of L2 factors in the misuse of take, such as replacing other delexical verbs (e.g., take a meal not have a meal), the substitution of specific verbs (e.g., take the earphones not carry the earphones), and limited knowledge of pairing specific nouns with particular verbs (e.g., take a profit not make a profit), especially among lower-level learners. These findings indicate the importance of L2 knowledge in learning verb-noun collocations for beginning and intermediate learners.