Faire, prendre, mettre and avoir beau
CEFR B2 · part 2
edumaterial's parts within the level. The European framework does not subdivide them.
The past subjunctive and sequence of tensesForming the past subjunctive and choosing between present and past depending on whether…Reflexive verbs and their agreementConjugating reflexive verbs with être and deciding whether the participle agrees…The conditional for unconfirmed informationRecognising the conditional French journalism uses for unconfirmed information, and not…Nominalisation in written FrenchTurning a verb into a noun with French suffixes, and rewriting a spoken sentence the way…Accents and the cedillaPlacing é, è, ê and ç correctly, and knowing that in French an accent changes the sound…Gender that does not match your languageChoosing le or la for nouns whose gender does not match your own language.The rule, in three lines
Some combinations are learnt whole, not word by word: faire la queue, prendre une décision, mettre du temps, avoir beau essayer, en vouloir à quelqu'un. The verb is not chosen for its meaning: it comes with the noun.
The usual slip. Picking the verb from the translation instead of the combination: «faire une décision» instead of «prendre une décision».
Why it catches you out. English says make a decision and stand in a queue, so both verbs are wrong in French: it is prendre une décision and faire la queue. Each of these has to be memorised as a block, because the logic does not carry over.