Make tsumegos or do tsumegos?

[Darsey]

Hi, this is a strange off topic of phrases.

I am not good with the english. I have the doubt of say "make tsumegos" or "do tsumegos". Are the two phrase the same or are there difference?

[skydyr]

"Make" would be creating one (as for other people to solve). "Do" would be to solve them.

Unsurprisingly this is a common question and tough distinction for speakers of languages which use one verb for both senses. You can find some more information on it at http://www.vocabulary.cl/Intermediate/Do_Make.htm or probably numerous other sites, at least in the general sense.

[Uberdude]

And for clarity, for making new tsumego you could use the verbs "create" or "compose", whilst doing them could be "solve".

[EdLee]

Hi Darsey,

To confuse you even more, there is also an idiom:

to make do

[Darsey]

Thanks to all.

The doubt is solved. I thought that when someone solves a tsumego, he is "creating" the answers and because of that I couldn't see the difference (I searched in google the difference between make and do but I couldn't perceive the difference when I write about tsumegos).

[skydyr]

Thanks to all.

The doubt is solved. I thought that when someone solves a tsumego, he is "creating" the answers and because of that I couldn't see the difference (I searched in google the difference between make and do but I couldn't perceive the difference when I write about tsumegos).

Yeah, logic only takes you so far, and most native speakers wouldn't even realize there was potential for confusion. It's a surprisingly difficult language to learn in some ways.

From another point of view, the reason we use "do" instead of "make" in that case is because of habit. That is, in that usage and in similar uses, we're used to hearing and using "do", so we use it again. There's no real way to learn edge cases like this except by assimilation, i.e. seeing lots of examples, just as there's no hard and fast rule for what makes a noun masculine or feminine in romance languages. Heck, I know in French, there are some nouns that change gender depending on where you are, so a noun that's masculine in France might be feminine in Quebec, or vice versa.