Make or Do? The One Question That Decides

Your friend bakes you a beautiful birthday cake!

你的朋友给你烤了一个漂亮的生日蛋糕！

You want to thank her, so you say, thanks for doing this cake.

你想谢谢她，于是说："thanks for doing this cake"。

She smiles... but it sounds a little strange.

她笑了……但听起来有点怪。

Here's the reason.

原因是这样的。

Make is for creating something new.

"make" 用于创造新的东西。

Do is for tasks, jobs and activities.

"do" 用于任务、工作和活动。

Before the cake, there was no cake. So you make it!

之前根本没有蛋糕。所以用 "make"！

Now, what about your homework?

那么，作业呢？

Nothing new appears. It's just a job on your list.

没有产生任何新东西。它只是清单上的一项任务。

So you do your homework, and you do the dishes.

所以说 "do your homework"，还有 "do the dishes"。

Wait... make a mistake? Really?

等等……"make a mistake"？真的吗？

Yes! A mistake is something new that you create.

没错！错误就是你创造出来的新东西。

Oops! Now there's a mistake that wasn't there before.

哎呀！现在多了一个之前没有的错误。

So next time, ask one quick question.

所以下次，先快速问自己一个问题。

At the end, is there something new?

到最后，有没有出现新的东西？

If yes, make. If no, do.

有，就用 "make"；没有，就用 "do"。

Now make a sentence, and do it out loud!

现在造一个句子，大声说出来吧！