“MAKE DO WITH” (Study English)

It’s time for your weekly dose of PHRASE FACTS! For work, leisure,
travel, or just a plain conversation over a hot cup of coffee,
we will feature phrases and expressions that will surely help
you develop your vocabulary!

For this week’s PHRASE FACTS, we will tackle the phrase “make do with”. What does it mean? How do we use it? When do we use it?
Well folks, “Make do with” is a phrase we use when we want to express that we are substituting something that is not available. We use what we can find as an alternative. Take a look at these examples:

“The beach is too far from our city, so we make do with
a homemade swimming pool at the back yard.”

In this example, the speaker has a homemade swimming pool at his backyard. Instead of travelling for hours just to get to the beach, he and his family can take a dip at home.

“Don’t be silly! If you run out of tomato sauce, you shouldn’t
make do with ketchup! That will ruin the taste!”

Here, the speaker is telling a person, who is cooking spaghetti, about
an ingredient he shouldn’t substitute with something else.
(Ketchup instead of tomato sauce? Seriously?)

“I really wanted to see Kanye West perform on stage but I can’t leave
my brother at home alone. I guess I’ll have to make do with
watching YouTube videos of the concert that people post on line. ”

We can also see that in these examples, we use “make do with” if the
subjects have no choice but to settle for a less satisfactory substitute.
(By the way, Kanye West is NOT my favorite rapper.)

There you have it! You now know how to use the phrase “make do with”. That wasn’t too difficult, was it? Now you are officially one phrase smarter than you were! Until next time!

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