MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Make or Do? difference (Papa Teach Me)
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https://multimedia-english.com/videos/lesson/make-or-do-difference-papa-teach-me-5499
Description

Make and Do have a similar meaning, so they are often confused, especially by learners whose language has only one verb for both meanings. This lesson will help you see things more clearly.

Transcript

How do I look? handsome?

The verbs "make" and "do". These cause a lot of confusion with students because I think in the Latin languages they use them as the same word? I might be wrong. I don't know. But in English, the easy way to remember is this:

1- The verb MAKE implies you build or create something. For example:

- Make a cake, make a coffee, make a plan, make a table, make a monkey cage...

2- whereas DO just implies an action. For example:

- Do a test ("I did well on my test"), I'm not doing anything, He does everything for me.

Some actions collocate with MAKE just because they just do. There's no logical reason for it. For example:

- Make a mistake, make an excuse, make money, make a decision, I make myself look pretty, you make me feel happy.

And DO collocates with work tasks, for example:

- Do the housework, do the homework, do the laundry, do some work...

And finally, you can use both for the same sentence, but the meaning will be different. Look at this example, this shows the difference:

You can say "I MADE something for your birthday", which would mean you created or you built something for them.

To say "I DID something for your birthday" would imply an action. For example, "I bought you a car".

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