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easy listening
LANGUAGE
Words,
Wor
ds, words…
Words, words…
Making
Words…
Words
…It
Per esprimere il concetto di fare, a volte si usa make e a volte do:
due verbi che rifiutano le rregole della logica. Il segreto per impararli
è come sempre la pr
pratica. By John Rigg
all over3 the house. This makes their
parents mad, or angry, and they may
shout at their children, but it makes
no difference – it changes nothing. The
children make faces4 and then ridicule
or make fun of their parents.
LANGUAGE LEVEL
BASIC
Track
5
Speakers:
Rachel Roberts
(Standard British accent),
Chuck Rolando
(Standard American accent).
“What do you make of this?1” asks a
detective as he looks down at a crime
scene. Here make is a synonym of think,
but make usually means to create or
construct: Italians make Ferraris and
your mother makes cakes. It also means
to do something: you make a phone
call, or make love. Do you remember
the 1960s slogan Make Love, Not War?
No one knows the exact origins of this
phrase, though some people credit the
philosopher Herbert Marcuse. In any
case, hippies first used the slogan in
protest against the Vietnam War.
At home, someone makes, or prepares,
dinner and everyone makes the beds.
The children, of course, make a mess2:
they leave clothes and their possessions
SUCCESS STORY
In the world of business, when we
make money, we’re not manufacturing
counterfeit bank notes5; here make
is a synonym for earn6. We make
appointments or arrange7 a time for
a meeting. Punctuality is important,
so we want to make it, or arrive at
the appointment. On the other hand,
when someone makes it, they are a big
success – this is used in the world of
show business when an actor becomes
famous.
There’s a lot of confusion over the
verbs make and do. Why do we make
a bed, but do the housework? Why do
we make an excuse, but do someone a
favor? There are no real answers
to these questions; we just have
to make do. That means to
survive with whatever we have
in front of us.
Glossary
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
14 fourteen
what do you make of
this? - cosa ne pensi?
make a mess - fanno
disordine.
all over - dappertutto.
make faces - fanno
smorfie.
counterfeit bank notes banconote false.
earn - guadagnare.
arrange - stabilire.