Collocations with עשה | Hebrew Grammar

Hebrew leans on עשה the way English leans on do, make, have and take put together — and the pairings do not line up, so there is nothing to derive. What עשה gives back is leverage. Each of these phrases is a whole everyday action, and Hebrew builds far more of its everyday actions this way than English does, which means twenty עשה-collocations will carry you further in conversation than twenty new verbs. The verb's own paradigm is on the verb עשה; this page is about what it combines with.

The one item that is fully documented

Almost nothing on this page has a dictionary entry — that limitation is dealt with honestly further down. עשה חיים is the exception, and it repays leading with, because its origin is the opposite of what an English speaker expects.

Hebrew Wiktionary tags it סלנג (slang), glosses it נהנה — enjoyed himself — and gives the origin as a תרגום שאילה, a loan translation, of Yiddish מאַכן אַ לעבן (checked 21 August 2026). Not English. The light-verb layer of Israeli Hebrew was shaped by Yiddish and Russian a generation before English contact became heavy, and this phrase still carries the fingerprint.

אחרי המבחנים עשינו חיים שבוע שלם בצפון.

akharéi hamivkhaním asínu khayím shavúa shalém batsafón

After the exams we had the time of our lives for a whole week up north. (slang)

עשינו כיף אתמול בערב, חבל שלא באת.

asínu keif etmól ba'érev, khavál sheló báta

We had a great time last night — shame you didn't come. (to a man, informal)

The core list

Hebrew	English single verb	Register
עשה טעות asá ta'út	make a mistake	neutral — the one pair where make and עשה agree
עשה סדר ב־ asá séder be-	sort out, tidy up	neutral
עשה רושם על asá róshem al	impress	neutral
עשה בעיות asá be'ayót	play up, be difficult	neutral — of a person or a machine
עשה חשבון asá kheshbón	do the sums; reckon that	informal in the "reckon" sense
עשה שקט asá shéket	be quiet (as an order)	informal, brusque
עשה עניין מ־ asá inyán mi-	make a fuss about	informal
עשה צחוק מ־ asá tsekhók mi-	make fun of	informal
עשה כיף asá keif	have fun	informal
עשה חיים asá khayím	have a wonderful time	slang (Wiktionary: סלנג)
עשה שימוש ב־ asá shimúsh be-	use	formal, written

עשיתי טעות בטופס, צריך למלא אותו מחדש.

asíti ta'út batófes, tsaríkh lemalé otó mekhadásh

I made a mistake on the form — it has to be filled in again.

בוא נעשה סדר: מי מביא מה?

bo na'asé séder: mi meví ma?

Let's get this straight — who's bringing what? (to a man)

המחשב עושה בעיות מאז העדכון.

hamakhshév osé be'ayót me'áz ha'idkún

The computer has been playing up since the update.

תעשו שקט רגע, אני מדבר בטלפון.

ta'asú shéket réga, aní medabér batélefon

Be quiet a moment, I'm on the phone. (m. speaker, to a group; brusque)

אל תעשי מזה עניין, זה באמת לא נורא.

al ta'así mizé inyán, ze be'emét lo norá

Don't make a thing out of it, it's really not that bad. (to a woman, informal)

אל תעשה ממני צחוק מול כולם.

al ta'asé miméni tsekhók mul kulám

Don't make fun of me in front of everyone. (to a man, informal)

עשיתי חשבון שנספיק, ולא הספקנו.

asíti kheshbón shenaspík, veló hispáknu

I reckoned we'd make it in time, and we didn't. (informal)

The noun picks the verb, and there is no rule

This is the part that has to be accepted rather than understood. Which light verb a noun takes is a property of the noun, stored with it, the same way a French noun stores its gender. Hebrew's most-quoted case is the decision: English makes one, and Hebrew receives one — קיבל החלטה.

That is measurable, and it comes out about as absolutely as usage claims ever do. On Hebrew Wikipedia, with the same probe shape on both columns and a leading space on each (insource:/ עשה החלטה / against insource:/ קיבל החלטה /, checked 21 August 2026): עשה החלטה 0, קיבל החלטה 189. The plural pair behaves identically — עשו החלטה 0, קיבלו החלטה 36. A zero on its own would prove nothing; a zero beside a live control on the identical frame is evidence.

קיבלנו החלטה קשה, אבל היא הייתה נכונה.

kibálnu hakhlatá kashá, avál hi haytá nekhoná

We made a hard decision, but it was the right one.

קבעתי תור לרופא שיניים ליום רביעי.

kaváti tor lerofé shináyim leyóm revi'í

I've made a dentist's appointment for Wednesday.

💡

Store the pair, never the pieces. החלטה is not a word you learn on its own — קיבל החלטה is. תור is not a word you learn on its own — קבע תור is. If you learn the noun and improvise the verb, you will improvise עשה every time, because that is what English trained you to do.

עשה רושם, and one use no dictionary carries

The noun רֹשֶׁם is well documented. Hebrew Wiktionary marks it as belonging to the rabbinic layer (חז״ל), glosses it as a mark or impression that gets noticed, and gives a second sense — the one about impressing people — tagged עממי, colloquial, with the example הוא סתם מחפש לעשות רושם, "he's just looking to make an impression" (checked 21 August 2026).

What the dictionaries do not carry is the impersonal עושה רושם ש, "it seems that", with no subject at all. It is nevertheless there in edited written Hebrew: insource:/ עושה רושם שה/ returns 9 on Hebrew Wikipedia, and five of the nine are subjectless — עושה רושם שהמחלוקת טרם נפתרה, "it seems the dispute has not been settled". The other four have an overt subject and are the ordinary personal use with a ש-clause after it. So: real, common in speech, and undocumented. Use it, and know that you will not find it in an entry.

היא עשתה רושם מצוין על המנהלת.

hi astá róshem metsuyán al hamenahélet

She made an excellent impression on the manager. (f. manager)

עושה רושם שהם כבר סגרו את זה בלעדינו.

osé róshem shehém kvar sagrú et ze bil'adéinu

It looks like they've already settled it without us.

Why an encyclopedia cannot settle most of this page

One honest limitation, because it changes how you should read any number you meet about slang. The searchable corpus of written Hebrew is dominated by encyclopedic and journalistic prose, and that prose has no occasion to say most of what is in the table above. On Hebrew Wikipedia, עשה כיף returns 0, עשה בלגן returns 0 — and the control that shows what those zeros mean is התקלח, "he showered", an utterly ordinary verb, at 6. Meanwhile the one formal entry in the table, עשה שימוש ב — no trailing space, because ב־ is a proclitic and runs straight into its noun — returns 696.

The zeros measure genre, not grammar. When a phrase is marked informal or slang here, a corpus search will not confirm it and cannot refute it — that is what the register labels are for.

הדוח עושה שימוש בנתונים משנה שעברה.

hadóakh osé shimúsh banetuním mishaná she'avrá

The report uses last year's figures. (formal, written)

💡

Five entries in the table carry a preposition welded on — עשה סדר ב־, עשה רושם על, עשה עניין מ־, עשה צחוק מ־, עשה שימוש ב־ — and dropping it does not make the sentence vaguer, it makes it something else. Learn each preposition as part of the phrase, exactly as you learn the ל־ in שם לב ל־.

Common Mistakes

1. Making a decision. The single most predictable transfer error from English, and the one measured above.

❌ עשיתי החלטה קשה אחרי שדיברתי איתה.

Incorrect — החלטה does not combine with עשה in Hebrew. The verb this noun takes is קיבל, literally 'received': קיבלתי החלטה קשה.

✅ קיבלתי החלטה קשה אחרי שדיברתי איתה.

kibálti hakhlatá kashá akharéi shedibárti itá

I made a hard decision after I talked to her.

2. Taking a shower. English builds it with take; Hebrew has an ordinary verb and uses it.

❌ לקחתי מקלחת לפני שיצאתי.

Incorrect — Hebrew does not combine לקח with מקלחת. There is a single verb for this, התקלח, and no light-verb phrase replaces it.

✅ התקלחתי ויצאתי, לא היה לי זמן לאכול.

hitkalákhti veyatsáti, lo hayá li zman le'ekhól

I showered and left — I didn't have time to eat.

3. Having a good time, word by word. Every word here is Hebrew and the sentence means something, which is what makes it hard to notice.

❌ היה לי זמן טוב בסוף השבוע.

I had a good time at the weekend

Incorrect as that meaning — the string reads 'I had good time available at the weekend'. For enjoyment Hebrew says היה לי כיף or, more strongly, עשיתי חיים.

✅ היה לי ממש כיף בסוף השבוע.

hayá li mamásh keif besóf hashavúa

I had a really good time at the weekend. (informal)

4. Reaching for עשה when the noun already has a verb. Before you build a phrase with עשה, ask whether Hebrew has a plain verb. Very often it does, and the plain verb is what a native speaker uses: צילם rather than a phrase for take a photo, התקשר rather than one for make a call, טעה alongside עשה טעות.

צילמתי את הילדים על החוף והתקשרתי לסבתא.

tsilámti et hayeladím al hakhóf vehitkasháti lesávta

I took photos of the children on the beach and called Grandma.

Key Takeaways

עשה is Hebrew's great light verb, and its partners have to be stored as pairs — the noun decides the verb, and no rule predicts which one.
עשה חיים is documented: Hebrew Wiktionary tags it סלנג and derives it from Yiddish מאַכן אַ לעבן, a loan translation — not from English.
The flagship contrast is measured. insource:/ עשה החלטה / = 0 against insource:/ קיבל החלטה / = 189 on Hebrew Wikipedia, and 0 : 36 in the plural (21 August 2026). Hebrew receives a decision.
Five of them carry a preposition inside the phrase: עשה סדר ב־, עשה רושם על, עשה צחוק מ־, עשה עניין מ־, עשה שימוש ב־.
The impersonal עושה רושם ש — it seems that — is genuinely current and appears in no dictionary consulted here; of its 9 corpus hits, five have no subject at all.
Corpus zeros for slang measure genre, not grammar: עשה כיף and עשה בלגן are both 0 where the ordinary verb התקלח reaches only 6.
Before inventing an עשה-phrase, check for a plain verb: התקלח, צילם, התקשר, קבע תור.

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