此篇文章採用語料庫語言學的方法，試圖找出中文「做」字類動詞：搞、弄、做之間的差異。儘管在大部份的字典中此三字是可互相定義的，但真實的語料中顯示出其語義是有區隔的，且其對補語的選擇是不同的。做強調「從事」與「創造」，常與受詞性的論元同時出現；弄有「處理」的語義且其後常接具體事物；搞強調「創新」且常與不尋常且語義較為負面的事件出現。此三字中尤其是搞常含有負面語義，而做與弄則較為中性。文章中並將討論語料庫研究法對語言教育與學習的影響。

Adopting a corpus-based approach, this paper aims to explore the different usages of the Mandarin verbs of doing zuo, nong, and gao. Though often employed to define one another in dictionaries, these three verbs are not always interchangeable. Rather, they exhibit different patterns of use and selectional preferences of the complements, and display different semantic prosodies. Zuo emphasizes the action of engaging in or creating and mainly collocates with the objectival type arguments; nong has the sense of handling and favors as its arguments existing, concrete objects; gao specifies the action of initiating and is usually taken as associated with objects nouns denoting unusual, unconventional, or even unfavorable movements. In this paper, it is also shown that gao often keeps bad company and tends to carry negative semantic prosody, while nong and zuo are basically neutral. The effects of a corpus-based approach on language teaching and learning are discussed as well.