25 Collocations With "Do" (and Why They Beat Memorizing Rules)

If you read my post on make collocations, you know how this works, and you can skip straight to the list. For everyone else, a quick story about why this post exists.

A student of mine, preparing for a job interview in English, once spent an entire weekend studying the "rules" for make vs do. He arrived on Monday with notes. Diagrams. A theory involving abstract versus concrete results. Then in our practice interview I asked what he does to relax, and he said, without hesitation, "I make yoga."

All that theory, zero delivery. And this is nobody's fault except the method's. Rules for make and do are like rules for which friends will get along at a dinner party: nice in theory, useless in practice, because these combinations weren't designed. They accumulated. Native speakers don't compute do the dishes; they've simply heard it ten thousand times. You can't match ten thousand hearings, but you can do the next best thing: learn the combinations directly, as ready-made chunks, in small themed groups. Last time we did make, the verb of producing things. Today, its harder-working, less glamorous twin. Do is the verb of tasks, duties, and getting on with life, and these 25 phrases carry an enormous amount of everyday English.

01 · The Big Idea

The Big Idea

Same instruction as last time, because it's the entire method:

A group of five phrases sharing a theme sticks together in memory like people who survived something together. And a phrase your mouth has physically produced is a phrase your mouth will offer you in conversation. Reading trains recognition. Speaking trains speaking. Choose accordingly.

Here's the delivery.

02 · Group 1: Housework (The Chores Nobody Escapes)

Group 1: Housework (The Chores Nobody Escapes)

If it's boring and domestic, it's almost certainly do. This is the most reliable neighbourhood in the whole make/do city.

• do the dishes – I cooked, so you're doing the dishes. That's the law.
• do the laundry – I need to do the laundry or tomorrow I'm wearing a towel.
• do the shopping – She does the shopping on Saturdays, with a list, like a professional.
• do the cleaning – We do the cleaning together. One of us complains more. I won't say who.
• do the ironing – Nobody enjoys doing the ironing. Anyone who says otherwise is hiding something.

Notice the pattern: do the + chore. The little the is part of the chunk. Learn it in, not separately.

03 · Group 2: Work and Study

Group 2: Work and Study

The productive group. If your English is for work or exams, these five pay for the whole post.

• do homework – The kids are doing their homework. Allegedly.
• do a course – I'm doing an online course in marketing.
• do research – Do some research before you buy anything expensive.
• do business – It's a pleasure doing business with you.
• do a good job – The builders did a great job with the kitchen.

Two small warnings from the trenches. It's do homework, never "make homework," and this might be the single most common do/make error in classrooms worldwide. And research takes no article: do research or do some research, never "do a research." The chunk protects you if you learn it whole.

04 · Group 3: Favours and Doing the Right Thing

Group 3: Favours and Doing the Right Thing

The decent-human-being group.

• do someone a favour – Could you do me a favour and pretend you didn't see that?
• do your best – I can't promise results. I can promise I'll do my best.
• do the right thing – It's not always easy to do the right thing. That's how you know it's right.
• do good – The charity does a lot of good in the region.
• do harm – It won't help, but it won't do any harm either.

Do me a favour is the star here. It's the standard, natural way to ask for small help in English, and its little brother Could you do me a favour? softens almost any request. Learn the question form out loud today and you'll use it within the week. I'd bet actual money.

05 · Group 4: Yourself (Body, Hair, Exercise)

Group 4: Yourself (Body, Hair, Exercise)

Here's where the "rules" people suffer, because do grabs a strange collection of personal activities, and no theory predicts them.

• do your hair – Give me ten minutes, I'm doing my hair.
• do your nails – She was doing her nails during the meeting. Camera off. Smart.
• do your makeup – I do my makeup on the train. It's a skill.
• do exercise – The doctor says I should do more exercise. The doctor says a lot of things.
• do yoga – My student, you'll remember, does yoga. He does not make it. Nobody makes it.

Sports and physical activities generally take do when there's no play involved: do yoga, do karate, do gymnastics. (Ball games take play, but that's a story for another post.)

06 · Group 5: The Vague Group (Secretly the Most Useful)

Group 5: The Vague Group (Secretly the Most Useful)

When the activity has no name, English reaches for do. These chunks are tiny, and daily conversation is built out of them.

• do something – Don't just stand there, do something!
• do nothing – My weekend plan is to do absolutely nothing, and I intend to succeed.
• do anything – I didn't do anything! (The official sentence of younger siblings everywhere.)
• What do you do? – The classic question about jobs. Not "what is your work," just What do you do?
• do well – She's doing well at her new company. (And its sad cousin: do badly.)

What do you do? deserves a special mention. Three little words, two of them the same verb, and it confuses learners every time. Learn it as one frozen block, answer with your job, and one of the most common questions in English is permanently handled.

07 · How to Learn These (The Three-Minute Routine)

How to Learn These (The Three-Minute Routine)

Same routine as the make post, because it works. One group per day. Read the five phrases out loud twice. Close the page. Make one true spoken sentence about your own life with each phrase: "I need to do the laundry tonight." Your life, your sentences, your memory doing what it does best, which is caring about you.

Then the step everyone skips: the next morning, before touching the new group, spend thirty seconds retrieving yesterday's five from memory, page covered. Retrieval, not rereading. The strain of pulling them out is the exact feeling of them becoming permanent. Five days, five groups, tiny daily reviews, and these 25 are installed. If you want to know why this schedule beats one heroic evening of memorizing, I've written a whole post on spaced repetition. Short version: your memory has opinions about timing, and it doesn't care about your opinions.

08 · Common Mistakes

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: "Make homework," "make yoga," "make exercise." All do. If it's studied, sweated, or stretched, it's do.

Mistake 2: "Do a mistake," "do a decision." The traffic runs both ways. Those belong to make: make a mistake, make a decision. If they still feel shaky, the make post has the full set.

Mistake 3: "Do a research," "do a progress." Uncountable nouns, no article. Do research. (And progress belongs to make anyway: make progress. English enjoys your suffering.)

Mistake 4: Studying the list silently, once, tonight. You know my feelings. Groups, out loud, spaced. The method is the message.

09 · Try This Today

Try This Today

Fill the gaps from memory. Every answer is a phrase from this post.

1. Could you do me a _______ and hold the door? 2. What do you _______? I'm a nurse. 3. He's doing a _______ in graphic design this year. 4. Don't worry about the result. Just do your _______. 5. I did absolutely _______ all Sunday, and it was wonderful.

Then start the routine: Group 1, out loud, five true sentences, today. The dishes are waiting for you anyway. You might as well learn their verb.

10 · The Twin Verbs, Complete

The Twin Verbs, Complete

Back to my student and his weekend of diagrams. Here's the ending of that story: we threw away the theory, he learned exactly these themed groups plus the make set, ten minutes a day for two weeks, and at the real interview he told them he does yoga, did a course in project management, and always does his best. He got the job. The diagrams did not attend.

Fifty chunks across two posts. That's the entire make/do problem, the most famous verb confusion in English, dissolved into a few weeks of three-minute sessions. Rules describe the language. Chunks deliver it.

Answers: 1. favour 2. do 3. course 4. best 5. nothing

WordCat teaches verbs like do and make inside their real collocations, grouped by theme and spaced automatically, so the right combination shows up when you speak. Try it at wordcat.app.

Keep reading:

• Heavy Rain, Strong Coffee: Why Collocations Are Not Logical