This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2266.
We made it or we did it.
How to know the difference.
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Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host, Aubrey Carter.
The IELTS Wiz and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
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Achievements are an exciting part of life, especially when you celebrate them with someone else.
In today's episode, find out when you should say, we made it versus we did it in English.
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Hey there, Aubrey. How's it going today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
I have a question for you.
Oh my gosh. Okay. All right, go for it.
Okay. What is something that you accomplished that felt really momentous?
Well, I wouldn't say this is felt super momentous, but hey, I did it right.
I did a four -mile race a few weekends ago.
Okay, that counts. I did it.
I completed it. Right.
I made it to the finish line.
Everyone, all my friends and family, they all did the half marathon, but I did the four -mile race.
That felt big to you.
It's funny because they're probably our runners.
I'm sure there are runners out there listening.
They're like really Lindsay four miles.
Four miles. Come on.
Because I'm not a runner.
Hey, everyone has their own limits, limitations and achievements.
So what about you? Anything momentous or significant that you feel that you've accomplished?
It's always kind of a bummer when you can't think of something offhand, right?
What's something momentous that I accomplished?
You know, I got my daughter.
My daughter has been putting off getting her license.
So I kind of talked her into like doing traffic school, getting her license.
So that felt kind of momentous.
Whenever someone doesn't want to do something you really think they should, especially as a mom, it does kind of feel momentous when you get them to accomplish it.
Especially if it's good for them.
That makes sense. Yeah, it's necessary with like where I live.
Everyone drives there.
So it's really difficult to get around without it.
It's kind of scary for some teenagers to, you know, take that step of starting to learn to drive.
And so that's interesting.
Yeah, but I remember when I was a teenager, we were all so anxious.
We wanted to get our license.
You know, we couldn't wait, couldn't wait a big party.
It's a big moment when you turn 16.
Yeah, but it's interesting.
Everyone has different personalities for some people.
There's a lot more trepidation there, right?
Yeah, for sure. What is interesting, it was inspired by in our Q &A, which is personal coach, which students in our classes are able to attend every week to ask questions about their course or about English grammar vocabulary.
One of our students, Max, was there and asked, you know, when do we use we made it and when do we use we did it?
And at first I thought, oh, this is super.
And then the more we talked about it and the more I research online, it's like this is a little tricky because some things we can say both.
Sometimes it's very clear which one we need to say and it can be confusing because it's very different in other languages.
You cannot translate directly in French.
These are the same verb, means make and do and then so that's like a little tricky for English learners.
Exactly. And I also want to distinguish, you know, we've done other episodes about make versus do and we will do more of them in the future.
But today is just focusing on kind of achievements, right?
Aubrey, wouldn't you say that?
Yes, the achievement aspect of make or do, right?
Exactly, because there's so much more, there's so many more uses for these verbs, but these are chunks, we made it or I made it, I did it, we did it.
These chunks that we use differently, but sometimes either would work which makes it a little confusing.
So put away what you've heard before about make versus do.
I know it's a hot question in our industry, right?
For our listeners, but today is just about this, ideally you're throwing your hands in the air and we've achieved something, right?
And these are both such great ways to show enthusiasm and connect.
If you're sharing an accomplishment, you know, if you're like, I made it or I did it, you're excited, you're passionate, then you can ask them, you know, what's something you accomplished?
What a great way to connect with someone and supporting other people, right?
You're there cheering them on, right?
Hey, you did it, you made it, right?
That's amazing. All right, cool.
So let's break it down.
Where are we starting today?
All right. Let's first talk about we made it.
So this can either mean you created something.
That's you've heard that a lot.
Like we made this Kate, whatever, but today we're talking about this other meaning.
That means like you arrived somewhere and it can be either literal or figurative.
So you arrive somewhere physical, maybe at the top of a mountain after a long hike or maybe you've arrived at like a goal and that's more of a figurative arriving at something.
Yes. And this puts a little bit, I feel like it puts a little bit, it just puts energy into the accomplishment.
You know, it shows there's been some strife, right?
There's been some challenge.
It definitely conveys a sense of relief accomplishment or maybe even surprised that having overcome something or reached a goal, right?
It's not just like, yeah, we made it.
It's always like we made it.
Yeah, for sure. Let's do some examples and then I have one example.
Here's one. We made it.
I've been wanting to hike this mountain for ages, right?
So it's a big deal that you got to the top of the mountain.
Exactly, right? You summited, you arrived at the peak.
Yeah, or maybe a travel destination.
We're finally in Belize.
We made it. I love that and then we can go to the metaphorical aspect of this, right?
So we finally made it to the winner's bracket of this tournament, right?
You make it to the finals, right?
So that's not like a physical arriving.
It's metaphorical. We were added to this list.
We have accomplished making it to the, you know, the platform of the Olympics or the winner's bracket of a tournament.
We made it a hundred percent.
And then there's an interesting use of this when we, it implies a sense of exclusivity.
You made the list. You made the XYZ and a good example I have of this is my family, like my partner's family.
They have in their home because there's step siblings and there's they're kind of an extended family a little bit and on the wall.
They have a big map which connects their names to each other, right?
So like my name is Lindsay.
If I have the eye connect to someone else's name with an eye in it.
That's right. So at some point about maybe I don't know a couple of years ago, my father -in -law was like, look Lindsay, you made the wall.
You made the wall. You made it onto the wall.
You made the wall. So and it's kind of a joke, right?
An exclusive wall that you had to officially get it.
Yeah, so that's kind of used in a funny way to create exclusivity and show that someone has made it into this exclusive group or clan in a sense.
And that makes me think of some of these exclusive groups.
We have like a club at school or something where you have a membership, right?
If you, if it's difficult to be admitted in, you'd be like, I made it or we made it if you are admitted in.
Yes. Yeah. So that's kind of fun to play around with that and extending it into that metaphorical world.
Yes, and this is where we're going to now talk about we did it, but for a lot of those more metaphorical uses, you could also say we did it, right?
We are finally in the tournament.
We did it. Just meaning we've accomplished something, right?
So this is more used when you want to say you completed an action, but it's usually something pretty momentous.
You wouldn't be like, I finished the dishes.
I did it. No, right.
Or the only, the only time you would do that is when you're really struggling, right?
Maybe you're sick. If you never do the dishes, that's what's going to be really proud of you.
So it has to be clearly the equivalent of sort of climbing a mountain, right?
It has to be a big deal.
I wouldn't say at the end of the day, I finished work.
I did it. No, that doesn't make any sense.
I finished work every day at five o 'clock.
It's exactly if it's something more routine, right?
We wouldn't say I did it.
We did it. It has to be noticeable momenta.
It has to be a big deal.
So for example, we've been trying to reach 100 % attendance and today we did it.
Nice. Yes. Or we won the championship game.
We did it. Nice. And these are both often said on their own, right?
Someone else will be saying something and you'll just respond.
We did it. Yeah. Just recognizing the momentousness, like what a big deal the accomplishment is.
Yeah. And I feel like the connection here is obvious, right?
Celebrating with teammates, with people in your, in your workplace.
It's just like there's connection all over this.
Yes, absolutely. Right.
If someone shares something that was a pretty big deal, you can say you did it, right?
If you know, they've been working toward it, be like, that's awesome.
You did it. Yeah. And I would imagine when you have kids, you probably use this a lot, right?
Especially when you challenge them, maybe physically, like for example, if I ever have kids, I think we're going to take them skiing, right?
And learning skiing could be very scary.
You know, hey, you can do that diamond, that, that black diamond run.
And then they get down.
Hey, you did it. Look, you made it down the run.
Yes. You'd be surprised.
All of the moms, all the parents out there are going to have solidarity.
You'd be surprised how small of things you'll say this, right?
Their shoes, their shoes, a piece of broccoli.
You did it. Great job.
Right. You got to use momentous because when it's such a struggle to get them to do something, they don't want to do it is momentous.
And it's kind of like you, you're sort of invested in that too.
You've kind of done it too.
Cause you've been trying to get them to eat it.
So it's like a little more energy, right?
Got to talk about, this is interesting.
I think the why Max asked about it and why it's a little tricky is there are times when you can say either.
So that's what's just a little tricky here.
Listen for these. As you're listening to English, which are you hearing?
We made it. We did it to get an idea of when you can say both.
I would definitely say when talking about accomplishing in a goal, a goal, we would say both.
Wouldn't you say Lindsay?
Totally a hundred percent.
Yeah. I think it works for both these big goals climbing Everest or something, right?
This is about both you using either one.
Exactly. You can either say we did it or you're using we made it figuratively.
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Okay, Aubrey, let's put it into a role play and then we will see these differences.
Yeah, awesome. You and I are competing in a pickleball tournament in this role.
Oh, geez, you would definitely beat me at pickleball.
I think you would be my partner.
Good. Good. Hopefully you wouldn't drag me down too much.
Like I would you if we were tennis serve in the box.
Yes. All right. I'll start us out.
I'm so excited. We made it to the finals.
Same. I thought we were going to be late, but luckily we made it on time.
Yeah, I've been wanting to sign up for a tournament forever.
Oh, me too. We finally did it.
So then a few minutes pass and we compete in the final game.
And then I say we did it.
We won. I like how we have the contrast here of the two.
We did it. Yes, right.
We've said it twice and it kind of means something different.
Yes, exactly. So let's go through this.
I first said so excited.
We made it to the finals.
That's that figurative.
We made it and we you cannot say we did it to the finals.
That doesn't make sense.
Right. We made it meaning we were added to the list.
We've accomplished this goal.
You could say we did it.
We made it to the finals, but you can't say we did it to the finals.
No, right. Exactly.
You can say we did it just meaning we accomplished that goal or that action, but when you're adding something else there, yeah, that doesn't make sense.
That doesn't work. And then I said same I thought we were going to be late, but luckily we made it on time and this means we'll be another verb that could go in there instead of we made it on time.
Just we arrived on time, right?
So like I thought we were going to be late getting here, but we made it on time meaning we arrived on time.
Yes, love that. And then this is another one, right?
You can't say we did it on time because made it here has this very specific meaning of getting somewhere on time.
Yeah, it is tricky what the instances when you can't interchange them right knowing the difference.
Yeah, right and then you said we were saying I've been wanting to sign up for a tournament forever and you say yeah, we finally did it and it's like we finally accomplished this action.
We finally followed through on something we've wanted to do right and specifically when I say we did it is we signed up.
We actually signed up.
We made the time we put it in our calendars and we and we did that and you could say that we finally signed up sure means sure thing, but you can also replace that we know what you're referring to and just say we finally did it.
I think it'd be much more common just to say we finally did it.
Yeah, we wanted to sign up for so long and we finally did it right exactly.
It's just like we use pronouns to replace an obvious subject when we know what the subject is.
We're not going to say it over and over when we know what we're referring to here.
Instead. We say we did it.
We finally did it and then we use the other meaning of did it and we say and you said we did it.
We won. Maybe they hit the ball into the net, right?
Our opponent's that you're assuming we won because of our opponent's error.
Like it couldn't be due to our visions like I've never played pick it out an overhead smash right at their feet, right?
Yeah, only if it were tennis, right exactly, right?
And yes, this is that we'll just say we did it sort of on its own meaning we won.
We accomplished this goal are aces a thing in pickleball.
Aubrey, is that a thing that happens or not just get it in place?
There are there can be really difficult serves a spin serve or just a really fast serve and it's considered an ace same in volleyball a serve that's unreturnable.
They'll call it an ace.
Okay in pickleball.
It's not really a thing where you'll be like ace like volleyball.
They'll be like ace ace in your face.
It's just like great serve.
Yeah. So same with tennis would be very rude.
There are a lot of matters matters issues in tennis more polite than those volleyball teams that are like cheering about getting an ace.
The funny thing is when you try to teach like a soccer player to play tennis and they are saying those they're bringing that language into tennis and oh no, you can't say that on the court.
Sister's a big volleyball player and we'll play pickleball together and she'll do something like that and she'll get some looks are like no, no, that doesn't transfer at a kid.
I love that interesting.
So really great question from our student Max.
What is the takeaway?
Where should we leave our listeners today Aubrey?
Yeah, make and do can be really confusing in English a big thing to remember is to not translate directly from your first language because it very likely works differently from language to language.
That's very common.
But today's tips will help you.
I feel like you have a lot of good examples of when to use which and when you can use either.
Yeah, and like we said before today's episode was only about achievements accomplishments putting your hands in the air.
You've done something and so focus on this use of make and do and don't worry so much today about all the other differences between make and do that we didn't talk about.
It's good to isolate things.
I think absolutely focus.
Yeah. Yes, that's really going to activate your brain help you remember these specific instances.
So good. All right, Aubrey.
Well, I'll see you on the next one.
Take care. You too.
Bye. All right. Bye.
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