Learn how to use the verb "Make"
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| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Know Your Verbs. My name is Alisha. And in this lesson, we're going to talk about the verb make. Let's get started. |
| The basic definition of make is to create or produce something. Some examples. Let's make cookies. She wants to make the presentation. Now let's take a look at the conjugations for this verb. Present, make, makes, past, made, past participle, made, progressive, making. Now let's talk about some additional meanings for this verb. The first additional meaning is to cause to be or to become. This sounds quite open. So let's take a look at some examples. |
| How can we make studying easier? Dogs make good pets. So this use of make means to cause something to be like something else or to cause something to become something else. In the first example sentence, we see, how can we make studying easier? Another way of saying this sentence is, how can we cause studying to become easier? So that's a much better way of saying cause to become, make. So how do we make something easier? So when you see make plus the comparative form of an adjective, in this case, we see make easier. It means this cause to become adjective. That's kind of how you can remember this pattern. |
| So some other common examples might be like to make something better, to make something worse, to make something stronger, for example. So this use of make means to cause to become, and then we use the comparative form. That's another key point here. Make sure to use the comparative form to make something better. So better, not good. Don't use the basic form of the adjective there. The second example sentence was dogs make good pets. |
| So dogs become good pets, in other words, or dogs are like a way of having a good pet is sort of a weird way of saying that. |
| But we see this a lot when talking about preferences, actually, like in questions too, like, what makes a nice house? Or what makes a good friend? What makes a good boss? It's not about creating that thing. It's about the qualities in that thing that you think cause it to become good or cause it to become bad. So for example, dogs make good pets, because they are loyal. So dogs become good pets or dogs are able to be good pets, because they are loyal. So this use of make doesn't refer to creating or producing anything. It refers to like a way of being or like something that you can become. So to give another example of this, like, what makes a good boss, for example, you could say, a good boss is someone who is fair and a good communicator, for example. |
| So that question, what makes a good boss is, what do you think causes someone to be a good boss? That's sort of an awkward, strange way of saying it. But the answer is, a good boss is someone who is fair and a good communicator. So those two things are like the qualities that cause someone to be a good boss or allow someone to become a good boss. So keep an eye out for this when you're reading and when you're listening to start. The next additional meaning is to total to total. Let's look at some examples. Three plus five makes eight. We're both bringing two people to dinner. So that makes six people. So this use of make is quite easy to understand, we can replace make with total in these sentences. |
| In the first example, three plus five makes eight, we can replace makes with totals. Three plus five totals eight or equals eight as well. In the second example sentence, we can do the same thing. We're both bringing two people to dinner. So that makes six people that totals six people. That means there are six people in total. Let's move on to the next additional meaning. The next additional meaning is to force. Some examples. I made my friends help me move to my new house. Management is making us work overtime. Okay, so this is another quite simple way of understanding the word make. It means to force. To force means to cause someone to do something they probably do not want to do. |
| So you apply pressure in some way. In the first example sentence, I made my friends help me move to my new house. It's like you asked your friends a lot or you pressured them or you did something to make them to cause them to feel they had to help you to force someone. We use make to show this there's not like any sort of willpower. It's not like a person volunteered when you use make, it's the opposite. Someone else is applying pressure to do something. As we see in the second example, management is making us work overtime. So the idea here is the employees and the management are the two people or the two groups. Management is forcing employees to work overtime. So management is putting pressure on employees and causing them to work overtime, but the employees do not want to. That's the idea here. So make is very commonly used to mean force. |
| Why do we use make instead of force? Make sounds less strong. It doesn't sound as strong as force. Force does sound quite strong. But we use make to talk about the same thing. And we tend to use it in more casual situations, like the cashier at the store made me go to the end of the line, for example, like I didn't want to do that, but they forced me to like it was a rule, for example. So in everyday situations, we use make. In more serious situations, we might use force. Let's move on to the next additional meaning. |
| The next additional meaning is to do an action. Let's take a look at some examples. Hurry up and make a decision. She doesn't make an effort at work these days. So these two example sentences introduce some common ways that we use make along with a noun. In the first example sentence, we see the phrase make a decision. In the second example sentence, we see make an effort. Make is commonly paired with some nouns to refer to doing those things to performing those actions. So make a decision is another way of saying decide to make an effort is another way of saying try. These are just different ways that speakers might choose to combine words to communicate. So it's kind of difficult to give a rule for when we should use make in front of a noun. So this is something that I think you can improve, like improve your knowledge of through reading, especially, I think it's quite hard to just give a rule for the specific kinds of nouns we can use in combination with make. |
| So I would suggest when you're studying something like this, as you read, just kind of keep an eye out for try to keep watching for those nouns that are paired with make. And that's some kind of action. Because we cannot use it for everything to perform an action to make an effort to make a decision to make trouble is another one. But but there's not really a rule for knowing specifically which two things can go together. So I would just recommend lots of practice for this one is quite tough. Let's move along now to some variations. The first variation is to make something out. This means to be able to see something difficult to see some examples. I think I can make out the letters on the license plate in this picture. Can you make out the address on this crumpled piece of paper. |
| So to make something out refers to being able to see or read something that is difficult to see, usually because it's like messy or it's blurry. So the first example is about a picture a license plate is the numbers and the letters we attach to a car when we register the car. So I think I can make out the letters on the license plate in this picture shows us that the picture is difficult to see, because we're using the verb the phrasal verb make out using make out shows us that they're something about the picture that makes it difficult to see maybe the letters are really small or the picture is not clear or there's some other reason that it's difficult to see. But using make out make out the letters shows us that it's kind of hard to do but maybe it's possible in this case. The second example sentence is a question can you make out the address on this crumpled piece of paper crumpled is a key word here crumpled means like squashed. So for example, if you have like a tissue for example, and you put it into a ball, this state this condition is crumpled. |
| So a piece of paper that is crumpled if we unfold it, it might be really hard to see information that's written on the paper. So we can use make out can you make out the address on this crumpled piece of paper? It's like can you see are you able to read the address on this thing that's difficult to see. So you can choose to use make out something to show that it's like a difficult to understand situation or status. The next variation is to make something up to make something up means to create a story or to lie. Some examples. I made up a story about a family emergency to get a day off of work. She made up an excuse about her health. So to use make something up or made up an excuse as we see in the second example sentence means to create something. That means to create a story, a story that is not true. |
| So when you make something up, you are like using your mind to create something you're using your mind to like, build a story that's not true. It's lying, essentially. So it's kind of a nice way of saying lie. But we, I think, I would say that when we use the expression make something up, it doesn't sound quite as strong as lie. So when we use lie, it does sound very like specific like you lie, that's a lie. But if we say you made something up, it doesn't sound quite as strong. It's not quite as severe. So we might use this for small lies or like little stories that we tell maybe that maybe don't hurt anybody. But we do it like to make life easier. So to make up a story, I made up a story about a train delay, so that I could cancel my appointment, for example. So you're trying not you're trying like to save a situation and you might make up a story in something like that. Let's move on to the last variation to make up for something to make up for something is to fix a mistake. Some examples. |
| Sorry, I had to cancel our date. Let me make up for it by buying dinner next time. She was 15 minutes late, but made up for it by buying the team donuts. So when we use make up for something, it means you repair like a small past mistake. In the first example sentence, a person has to cancel a date, like a small inconvenience or like you're letting the other person down, you're disappointing the other person. So when we say I'll make up for it, it means I will fix that mistake and make an improvement. That's kind of the idea. So maybe in this case, like it's a dinner date. And to make up for it to fix the mistake, the person, the speaker is offering to pay for dinner next time, like to repair this problem to fix the problem. |
| In the second example sentence, it's a delay. She was 15 minutes late, but made up for it. It here is the 15 minute delay. It's the problem. She made up for that problem by buying the team donuts. So you'll see this is a very common pattern with make up for something to make up for something by doing something else. We saw this in the first example sentence to let me make up for it by buying dinner next time. In the second example sentence by buying donuts for the team. So we introduced the mistake, we introduced the desire to repair the mistake and the fixing behavior there. So make up for something by doing something else, we can combine all of these together to fix mistakes, hopefully. |
| Okay. So those are hopefully a few new ways that you can use the verb make. Of course, there are a lot of other ways of using this verb. And there are a lot of phrasal verbs too. So I highly recommend checking a dictionary for more information about this verb. Of course, if you have questions or comments or want to practice making example sentences with this verb, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this episode of know your verbs and we'll see you again next time. Bye bye |
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