Make vs Do: Is There a Rule You Can Trust?
Learn productive tendencies and high-frequency collocations for make and do.
EN005 · EN · A1 / A2 · vocabulary, grammar
The question
Why do we make a decision but do homework?
A helpful tendency is that make often relates to creating, producing or causing a result, while do often relates to tasks, work and activities. But combinations are conventional: learning the word partnership is more reliable than treating the distinction as a strict rule.
High-value combinations
| Make | Do | Example |
|---|---|---|
| make a mistake | do homework | I made a mistake in my homework. |
| make a decision | do the dishes | He made a decision and did the dishes. |
| make progress | do exercise | You're making progress because you do regular exercise. |
| make an effort | do business | They made an effort to do business together. |
Notice that many expressions are not literal creation or tasks: make friends, make sense, do your best and do someone a favor. Learn a phrase with a complete example sentence, not as an isolated translation.
Common mistake
Avoid *do a mistake and *make homework. Say make a mistake and do homework. Both make and do appear with work-related nouns, but in different fixed expressions: do work; make it work.
Remember
Use the creation/task distinction as a clue, then memorize common make/do collocations.