Intermediate vocabulary: make or do

Learners of English often confuse do and make.

There is a rough guideline, but no hard and fast rule:

We often use do when we speak about everyday jobs and tasks: do the shopping; do the dishes; do my homework.
We use make when we want to speak about creating something, in particular something which didn’t previously exist: make a cake; make a suggestion; make an offer.

Here are some examples of when to use make or do:

When to use make

make an offer		He made me a good offer.
make a mistake		I made a mistake. I’m sorry.
make an appointment		He made an appointment at the dentist.
make an arrangement		We’re just making our holiday arrangements.
make a promise		You made me a promise. Keep it!
make a complaint		They made a complaint about the noise.
make a decision		Managers have to make hard decisions sometimes.
make a telephone call		I spent all day making telephone calls.
make a suggestion		I made a few suggestions but nobody agreed.
make an excuse		Stop making excuses for your laziness.
make a profit		Our company made a big profit last year.
make a loss		Our company will make a loss this year.
make a mess		He dropped the milk and made a mess on the floor.
make a choice		I think he made the right choice.
make progress		The students are all making good progress.
make money		A profit means you have made money.

When to use do

do something		What are you doing? I’m not doing anything.
do an exam		I did five exams and passed all of them.
do homework		School kids have to do a lot of homework.
do housework		I always do the housework at weekends.
do the shopping		I hate doing the shopping in supermarkets.
do an exercise		I did all the exercises in my grammar book.
do a job		He does his job well.
do the dishes		Who’s going to do the dishes after dinner?
do the ironing		Her husband never does the ironing.
do someone a favour		Do me a favour – lend me some cash.
do good		Smoking won’t do you any good.
do harm		Violence on TV does a lot of harm, I think.
do your best		Always try to do your best.
do damage		I crashed and did a lot of damage to my car.
do business		Our company does a lot of business in Asia.