Love is in the air: Photo: linh.ngan via Flickr"Make" is an important grammatical word in English that can be used in a few ways that are related. If you think about the basic meaning of "make" it is "create" or "compel". This can bring the different ways of using "make" together so that they make sense.

The three most important ways to use "make" as a auxiliary verb are:

1. As a causative;
2. To show an effect or change;
3. As a passive.

Causatives

Causatives are verbs that show that one person causes another to do something—person A might do something, but it is because person B told them to, or asked them to.  This is explained more fully in the grammar point on causatives.

Learn more about causatives.

It is important to notice that when we use "make" it shows that there was some force invovled. Often when someone is made to do something, it is against their will. It was not their choice. The nuance is explained in the causatives article. Some examples of "make" as a causative are given below:

• My boss made me work on the weekend.
• The teacher made the class stay after school.
• I made her laugh.

Sometimes these patterns use a reflexive pronoun (myself, yourself, itself, herself, himself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves), and a past participle (or PP). Some examples are:

• I could not make myself heard over the noise. 
• She can make herself understood in English.

This pattern often only uses "heard" or "understood". But sometimes you hear this:

• Do I make myself clear? 

which means, "Do you understand me?", but is very threatening and has an angry tone. For example, your boss might say to you: "If you are late again, I will have to fire you! Do I make myself clear?"

Showing a change

"Make" can show change, like "get" or "become". But in the case of "get" or "become" the change is intransitive. That means that the thing itself changes. The change is inside the thing, and it is not caused by anything outside. However, when you use "make" to show change, the change comes from outside. It is a transitive change. In this way, "make" still has its base meaning of "compel" or "create". 

Consider the pattern and examples below:

The subject makes the object different.  The object complement tells us more information about the object. If we want to say that something changed, we can say "Life got interesting" or that "I got confused", but if we want to show the cause of the change, then we should use "make".

Passives

When you use "make" in a passive structure, showing causation, you need to include "to". When the sentence is active, there is no "to". So the passive pattern is:

be made to do [something]

Remember that a passive structure is BE + PP, like "will be eaten" or "was finished". Look at the examples: