Making Do

Welcome to my new blog! Over the coming weeks and months (and who knows, possibly years) I’ll post regular updates on topics of English vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation that crop up in my lessons. I hope you find this blog informative and, above all, enjoyable.

Today I’ll be looking at two extremely common English verbs: to do and to make. How do you know when to use do and when to use make? Your native language might only have one verb that can be translated as both do and make, or it might have two separate verbs that aren’t used in the same way as in English. So how do you decide? Unfortunately, as is usually the case in English, there’s no simple rule. However there are some general guidelines.

If you’re creating, building or contructing something, you’ll probably want to use make:

• I’ve just made a pot of tea.
• She made that dress herself.
• I’m making dinner tonight.
• Adams & Son make wooden furniture.

For other types of activity, we normally use do:

• I’ve got to do the ironing now.
• He does yoga every Tuesday night.
• What are you doing tonight?
• Jack is doing his maths homework.
• Do you do judo? (This is a bit of a tongue-twister. I’ll write a post on tongue-twisters at some point in the near future. Stay tuned!)

We often use make when we’re arranging something, as in make a date, make an appointment, make a booking, make a reservation, or make an order. But you wouldn’t *make a meeting or *make a lesson; you’d arrange, book or simply have a meeting or a lesson.

• Can we have a meeting tomorrow at eleven?

We often use do when talking about study or exams:

• She’s doing geography at university.
• I didn’t do French at school.
• I’m doing an advanced English course.
• To pass the course I’ll have to do an exam. (You can also take or sit an exam.)

We have a lot of set phrases in English that use do and make, and I’m afraid you’ll just have to learn them. You’ll find a comprehensive list of these phrases here. There are also a large number of phrases that don’t use do or make, but instead use other very common verbs like have or take. Here are some examples:

• To take a photo (or a picture)
• To take a risk
• To have a party
• To have fun
• To have (or take) a shower
• To have (or take) a look

Finally, to the title of this blog post. To make do is a phrasal verb meaning “to manage to live without something that you would like to have”. A couple of examples:

• I’d love a new car but I’ll have to make do with the one I’ve got.
• I grew up in a poor family. We had to make do with what we had.

I hope this post has been of some help, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.