Today I’m tackling a little verb that can become many phrasal verbs – made.

Made – we know it’s the past tense of make. All the phrasal verbs I’m going to look at today sound very similar but have slightly different meanings. Knowing which one to use for each situation, will help you to sound more natural.

We’ll start with:

Made of

We use made of when we talk about the basic material or qualities of something. This doesn’t change very much even if there is a slight manufacturing process.

All her jewellery is made of gold and precious stones. (We can see the gold, we can see the stones – that’s what it’s made of!)

Those bags are made of leather. (We can recognise that the basic material is leather, even though there is some manufacturing taking it from a piece of leather to a bag)

A sports coach might say, “Show me what you’re made of!” They want you to perform well and achieve great things using all your good qualities.

Made from

We use made from when something has been changed from one thing to another – so there has been a longer manufacturing process.

Example
Paper is made from wood. (A lot happens in the factory before wood becomes paper. If you didn’t know paper was made from wood, you wouldn’t look at a piece of paper and think, “hey, that must have come must have come from a tree!”)

Another example:
Henry Ford once wore a suit and tie made from soy-based material.

Basically, the main difference between made of and made from is that with made of, the material is mostly the same with a bit of change, whereas made from is used when there has been a lot of change to the raw material to create something new and unrecognisable.

Made up of

We use made up of to show the components of something. It’s basically a list of some or all the different parts that are included within that thing.

Examples
The human body is made up of muscles, bones, tissues, blood and nerves.
The jury was made up of seven women and five men.
A Boeing 747 is made up of 6 million parts. Wow!

Made out of

We usually use made out of when we talk about something that has been changed or transformed from one existing thing into another. These days we call this upcycling, or repurposing.

Examples
The windows of that house were made out of old glass bottles.
My children’s favourite swing is made out of old tyres.

Made with

Often, we use made with to talk about the ingredients of food and drink.

Examples
This dish is made with rice, vegetables, and herbs.
Is Sangria always made with red wine and brandy?

Well, is it? If you know, tell me in the comments!

People sometimes use made with love when they want to say that something has been lovingly crafted especially for someone else.

Granny’s cakes were always made with love.

There is a book written by the British champion diver Tom Daley and it’s called Made with Love. It’s full of lovely crafty things that you can make as gifts!

Recap:

• made of – shows the basic or raw material
• made from – there is a big change during manufacture
• made out of – something is turned into something else
• made up of – lists some or all the parts of something

As always, comments and questions can be left under the video on YouTube.

Until next time!