Learning Vocabulary: Make

Learning Vocabulary - Phrases with make

Intro:

Rich: This doesn’t make sense.

Jack: What doesn’t make sense?

Rich: They must have made a mistake.

Jack: Made a mistake with what? Do you want to tell me what you’re talking about?

Rich: This email I’ve got. It says that Accrington Stanley have made an offer for the Manchester Utd goalkeeper, David De Gea. It says that he’s going to make the move from Utd to Accrington for £100 million in January.

Jack: Do you mean Accrington Stanley who play in the fourth division with average crowds of two thousand? I think that’s what you call fake news. Don’t click on it. It’s made-up.
 
Rich: Right, of course. I have to make sure I don’t believe everything that I read. Sometimes these things can make me look a bit silly.

Jack: Some people make a living out of tricking people online. Who do you think sent it?

Rich: Here at the bottom. It says fake news and pictures provided by … Jack Radford.

Jack: All right. Don’t make a scene! I thought it would make you laugh! 

Welcome - Make

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich

Jack: and I’m Jack

Rich: and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: Where we talk about football and help you with your English.

Jack: What’s happening this week, Rich?

Rich: In this week’s podcast, we’re looking at vocabulary. We’re going to look at some common phrases and collocations with the word ‘make’.

Jack: Did you notice that we used lots of different phrases with ‘make’ in the introduction? We’ll look at these again later on.

Rich: Make is a word that is often difficult to use correctly because in lots of languages such as Spanish, German and French just one word is used for make and do, but in English we use two words make and do.

Jack: This means that you have to learn when to use do and when to use make.

Rich: That’s right. I hear my students making mistakes with this quite a lot. I often hear ‘Are we going to make an exam today?’ or ‘I did a mistake or I did a joke’.  

Jack: It’s important to get it right. For example, you can say the goalkeeper made a great save but you can’t say the goalkeeper did a great save.

Rich: That’s right. But, in this week’s podcast, we’re just looking at words and phrases with ‘make’ and we’ll look at ‘do’ in a future podcast.

Jack: And, we’ve got a couple of tasks that will help you with the language we introduce in this podcast. So make sure you listen to all of the podcast and use the podcast page on the Premier Skills English website to help you.

Rich: Don’t forget, there is more information about the different ways we use make on the page below and activities to help you understand as well as another football phrase at the end of the podcast. Jack: And one more thing ...

Rich: One more thing?

Jack: Yes ... well, we’ve had a request.

Rich: Oh yeah?

Jack: Remember that joke you told last week?

Rich: About the interrupting cow .... mooooo!

Jack: Yes. Well, some people thought it was funny. They thought you were funny and they want more.

Rich: More moooing?

Jack: No. More jokes. Do you know any more?

Rich: I know loads ... hundreds ... thousands ...

Jack: OK OK ... Just one will do.

Rich: Great.

Jack: A funny one this time, please.

Rich: They’re always funny. Here’s one ...

Rich: Two football fans are standing outside the stadium and one says to the other ‘I wish I’d brought the piano to the match’. The other fan says ‘why would you bring a piano to the match?’ and the first fan responds ‘because I left our tickets on it’.

Jack: (groan) always funny? I’m not sure about that.

Rich: It made me laugh!

Topic Focus

Jack: What are you doing?

Rich: As I was saying in the last section, I’ve had quite a few students making mistakes with collocations and phrases with the word ‘make’. So, I’m going to make a crossword for them and I’m going to use it in class next week.

Jack: Make a crossword  ... nice. You’re going to write it?

Rich: That’s right. I’m going to make the crossword and my students are going to do the crossword. I hope it will make it easier and make it clearer for my students to understand.

Jack: Do you want a bit of help?

Rich: That would be great. You can do the across clues and I’ll do the down clues, all right?

Jack: And all the answers have to be a phrase or collocation with make?

Rich: That’s right. I’ve done the first one already. Have a listen to the clue. In the UK, the first thing that lots of people do in the morning is … Do you want to make a guess?

Jack: Go to the toilet?

Rich: No! And that doesn’t include make, does it?

Jack: Make the bed? 

Rich: No.

Jack: Make breakfast?

Rich: OK, hold on. I need to put the number of letters and words after the clue to make it easier. This expression has got five words. Four letters, one letter, three letters, two letters, three letters.

Jack: Make … make a … in the morning I make a …. I make a cup of tea!

Rich: Yay! Well done!

Jack: OK, I’ve got one. When you want to see the doctor or the dentist you usually need to call to ... 

Rich: Easy. Make an appointment.

Jack: Very quick!

Rich: My next one … right, if someone says something really mean to you it ...

Jack: Makes me angry!

Rich: Three words. Five letters, two letters, three letters.

Jack: Makes me sad.

Rich: Nearly.

Jack: Makes me … cry?

Rich: Very good.

Jack: Right, I’ve got a more difficult one now. You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the news or especially on social media because sometimes it’s …

Rich: Nice. Invented. Imagined. Sometimes it’s made-up. 

Jack: Like that email I sent to you about Manchester Utd’s David de Gea.

Rich: Yes, OK, you don’t need to carry on making fun of me!

Jack: I won’t mention it again. Let’s stop doing this now and in the next section, we’ll look at some of the different ways we can use make. 

Rich: And we can share the crossword with our listeners on the Premier Skills English podcast page in the downloads section.

Jack: That sounds like a good plan.

Language Focus

Jack: In the last section, we started to create a crossword using phrases with ‘make’.

Rich: There are many different ways that ‘make’ can be used and we’re going to take a look at some of the most common ways.

Jack: The first way make is used is to mean produce or create something. For example, the first phrase in the last section was make a cup of tea. Here make means produce or create.

Rich: You can use make in a similar way with expressions like make a sandwich, make breakfast - it’s often used to talk about food and cooking. But we can also use make when we say make a copy of something or make a hole in the garden - here it’s like dig.

Jack: Do you often make holes in your garden?

Rich: All the time Jack! Another way to use make is like in the phrase to make an appointment.

Jack: Yes, we use make for plans and decisions. We make a plan, we make a decision, we make our minds up, we make arrangements, appointments and choices.

Rich: OK, a third way to use make is when something changes someone’s emotions. Earlier I said that something can make you cry. Things can also make you angry, make you sad, make you happy.

Jack: When someone surprises you and says boo it might make you jump. A film might make you sad. A joke might make you laugh ... or it might not. It might make you groan ... Rich?

Rich: Yes, well ... Some common phrases with make are connected to communicating and speaking. We make a phone call, we make a speech, we make a prediction, a suggestion, a joke, a comment, a point, a complaint and an excuse. 

Jack: I really like the phrase make a fuss. You can use it if someone complains a lot about something that isn’t very important. 

Rich: Yes. I have a friend who’s a real fusspot. I’m always telling him to stop making a fuss.

Jack: Remember that these are just general rules because we can also tell a joke and we don’t make a story, we tell someone a story or read a story.

Rich: Finally, there are lots of idiomatic expressions that use make. These are often the most difficult to learn because you need to learn them separately. 

Jack: Earlier I told Rich that news is sometimes made-up.  Here it is an adjective but to make something up is also a phrasal verb. At the beginning of the podcast, I made up an email to make a fool out of Rich.

Rich: To make a fool out of someone. Another idiomatic expression we used at the beginning of the podcast. In a minute or two, in one of your learning tasks, you are going to be looking back at that opening conversation. 

Jack: But before we do that, let’s remind you of five common ways we use expressions that include the word make.

Rich: Number one: to produce or create something, for example, make a pizza or make a cake.

Jack: Number two: to make plans and decisions. For example, we make up our minds about something or we make an appointment at the dentist.

Rich: Number three: to talk about changing emotions. For example, the film made me sad or the news made me angry.

Jack: Number four: to talk about how we speak and communicate. For example, we make a comment or we make a phone call.

Rich: Number five: phrasal verbs and other idiomatic expressions that include make. These are best learnt individually and in context.

Task

Jack: We have two tasks for you this week. The first task is to listen to our conversation at the beginning of the podcast again. 

Rich: This conversation included ten phrases with make. 

Jack: One of the best ways to learn new phrases is when you see or hear them in context - in a normal conversation.

Rich: We want you to listen and find ten expressions with make. Write down each expression and think about how it is used and what it means. 

Jack: Try to only listen at first but if it’s difficult or you want to check your answers, then take a look at the transcript.

Rich: Our second task for you this week is a crossword that we have made for you.

Jack: You can either look at the image of the crossword on the page on the website or download and print it off to use at home or in class.

Rich: All the phrases include the word make and most, but not all, have been used in this week’s podcast.

Jack: There is also a secret football word hidden in the crossword. We want you to complete the crossword and tell us what this secret word is in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Can you work out this week’s football phrase?

Rich: Have you got a football phrase for us this week? 

Jack: Yes, I have, but first, last week’s football phrase. Last week’s phrase was play-off match or just play-off. A play-off is a match between two teams that decides which team progresses to the next round. Italy were knocked out of the World Cup in a play-off last week.

Rich: Lots of you got it right. Well done to Sabanoleg and Liubomyr from Ukraine, Lakerwang from China, Haruyuki from Japan, Kwesimanifest from Ghana, Khaldoun83 and Elghoul from Algeria, Milos from Serbia, Minh Hoang from Vietnam, and Ahmed Adam from Sudan.

Rich: What’s this week’s phrase, Jack?

Jack: This week’s phrase is to **** **** *****. It means to play for a team for the first time. The West Brom midfielder, Gareth Barry has played more times in the Premier League than any other player and **** *** ***** for Aston Villa in 1998!

Rich: And the phrase includes the topic of this podcast!Jack: Of course! Right, that’s all we have time for this week! Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and make a guess at our football phrase in the comments below.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!