"Make breakfast" or "do breakfast"? "Make a decision" or "do a decision"? If you're not sure, you're in good company — make and do are one of the most-confused verb pairs in English. Most languages collapse them into a single verb (Spanish hacer, Portuguese fazer, French faire, Italian fare, Polish robić, German machen/tun). English splits them, and you have to learn where the line is.
The good news: there's a rule that gets you 80% there. The other 20% you just memorize.
The rule that gets you 80% there
- Do = the action itself. Abstract, routine, or general work. No new object after.
- Make = create a result. Something new exists in the world after you finish.
| Do (the action) | Make (the result) |
|---|---|
| do homework | make a sandwich |
| do exercise | make a phone call |
| do business | make money |
| do the laundry | make a decision |
| do research | make a mistake |
The mental test
Ask yourself: after I'm done, is there a thing that wasn't there before?
- "Make a cake" → there's now a cake. → make.
- "Do the dishes" → no new thing; you cleaned what was there. → do.
- "Make noise" → noise didn't exist before; now it does. → make.
- "Do business" → business is the activity, not a new object. → do.
If you can point to a result, lean make. If it's just the activity, lean do.
The 20% you have to memorize
The rule breaks for fixed expressions. "Make a phone call" — what's the result? An ended call? It's just an idiom. Same with "do the dishes" — you could argue you make them clean, but English picked do. These are collocations: word pairs that just go together. Native speakers learned them as one unit, not by applying a rule.
You'll do the same. Group, drill, repeat.
The phrases to memorize
Lock in these do collocations:
| Daily life | Work | Other |
|---|---|---|
| do homework | do business | do harm |
| do the dishes | do a job | do good |
| do the laundry | do the work | do your best |
| do exercise | do research | do a favor |
| do the cleaning | do a project | do nothing |
| do the cooking | do a course | do well / badly |
Lock in these make collocations:
| Decisions & ideas | Communication | Money & errors |
|---|---|---|
| make a decision | make a phone call | make money |
| make a choice | make an announcement | make a profit |
| make a plan | make a complaint | make a mistake |
| make progress | make a suggestion | make a loss |
| make sense | make a comment | make an effort |
| make sure | make a speech | make trouble |
| make up your mind | make a noise | make friends |
5 errors your first language can cause
Speakers of Romance and Slavic languages produce the same wrong sentences. Watch for these:
- Spanish / Portuguese (hacer / fazer): "I want to do a question." → ❌ Should be: "I want to ask a question." (English uses a different verb here entirely.)
- French (faire): "I will make my homework." → ❌ Should be: "I will do my homework."
- Italian (fare): "She made a course in Paris." → ❌ Should be: "She took a course." (Or "did a course," British usage.)
- Polish (robić): "He does a mistake." → ❌ Should be: "He makes a mistake."
- German (machen): "I will make sport." → ❌ Should be: "I will do sport." (Or "play sport," "exercise.")
Self-check: 12 fill-in-the-blank
Fill in make or do (use the correct tense). Try each one before revealing.
- I need to ___ my homework before dinner.
- She ___ a great cake yesterday.
- Did you ___ a decision yet?
- He ___ the dishes every night.
- I ___ a mistake on the test.
- They ___ a lot of money last year.
- Please ___ your best.
- Don't ___ noise in the library.
- We ___ a plan for the weekend.
- She always ___ the cooking.
- He ___ a phone call to his mother.
- I'll ___ exercise after work.
10–12 right: you've got it. 7–9 right: re-read the rule. Below 7: build your collocation list and review weekly until they stick.
The same first-language transfer pattern shows up in say vs tell — both are pure-collocation problems where Romance and Slavic-language speakers default to the wrong English verb.