Spanish Phrasal Verbs with Dar and Hacer
You know the feeling: you’re listening to a native speaker, you catch every word, and somehow you still don’t understand the sentence. Me da igual. ¿Te hace falta? Darse cuenta. (I don’t mind. Do you need it? To realise.) All familiar words — but the meaning doesn’t add up from the parts. That’s because dar and hacer have a whole second life in Spanish, built from idiomatic expressions that you have to learn as chunks.
Quick answer: Dar and hacer form dozens of idiomatic expressions — called locuciones verbales — that function as fixed units with their own meanings. Learning these as chunks rather than trying to translate them word by word is the fastest path to understanding real Spanish.
Expressions with dar
darse cuenta de — to realise
This is one of the most common expressions in Spanish. Darse cuenta is the reflexive form, so it always includes the appropriate reflexive pronoun.
No me di cuenta de que era tan tarde. (I didn’t realise it was so late.)
¿Te das cuenta de lo que estás diciendo? (Do you realise what you’re saying?)
dar igual — to not matter / to be all the same
Structurally similar to gustar, dar igual takes an indirect object pronoun and is conjugated to agree with whatever follows.
Me da igual qué película ponemos. (I don’t mind which film we put on.)
Le da igual estudiar o no estudiar. (It doesn’t matter to him whether he studies or not.)
Because we sequence practice by frequency in VerbPal, dar and hacer are among the earliest verbs you’ll drill — and getting their conjugations automatic across all tenses is what lets you hold these full expressions in mind without the verb form becoming the bottleneck.
dar miedo — to frighten / to scare
Again, structured like gustar. The thing that frightens is the subject.
Me da mucho miedo volar. (Flying really scares me.)
¿Te da miedo la oscuridad? (Are you afraid of the dark?)
dar pena — to feel sorry / to be sad about something
Me da pena que no puedas venir. (I’m sorry you can’t come.)
Le da mucha pena dejar su ciudad. (She’s very sad to leave her city.)
dar la vuelta — to turn around / to go around
Da la vuelta a la derecha en el semáforo. (Turn right at the traffic light.)
Tuvimos que dar la vuelta porque el camino estaba cerrado. (We had to turn back because the road was closed.)
darse prisa — to hurry up
¡Date prisa, que llegamos tarde! (Hurry up, we’re going to be late!)
Se dio prisa para coger el tren. (She hurried to catch the train.)
dar un paseo — to go for a walk
¿Quieres dar un paseo por el parque? (Do you want to go for a walk in the park?)
Después de cenar siempre damos un paseo. (We always go for a walk after dinner.)
dar las gracias — to thank / to say thank you
Quería darte las gracias por tu ayuda. (I wanted to thank you for your help.)
Dio las gracias a todos los presentes. (She thanked everyone present.)
dar ánimo — to encourage / to cheer someone up
Sus palabras me dieron mucho ánimo. (His words really encouraged me.)
¡Venga, te doy ánimo, tú puedes! (Come on, you’ve got this — I’m rooting for you!)
Several dar expressions — dar miedo, dar igual, dar pena — follow the same grammar as gustar. The thing that causes the feeling is the subject; the person experiencing it takes an indirect object pronoun. Once you lock in the gustar structure, you unlock a whole family of dar expressions at the same time. In VerbPal, this is exactly where active typing drills help: instead of recognising the pattern passively, you produce me da, te da, le da until the structure stops feeling unusual.
Pro Tip: Group dar expressions by grammar pattern, not just by meaning. Put dar igual, dar miedo, and dar pena together as “gustar-style” chunks, then practise saying each one in the present and preterite.
Expressions with hacer
hacer falta — to need / to be necessary
Me hace falta más tiempo para terminar. (I need more time to finish.)
No hace falta que te disculpes. (There’s no need for you to apologise.)
hacer caso — to pay attention / to listen to
¡Hazme caso, es importante! (Listen to me, it’s important!)
No le hizo caso y tuvo un accidente. (He didn’t listen and had an accident.)
hacerse — to become
Se hizo famoso de la noche a la mañana. (He became famous overnight.)
Con el tiempo se hizo más paciente. (Over time, she became more patient.)
hacer daño — to hurt / to harm
Me hago daño cada vez que corro sin calentar. (I hurt myself every time I run without warming up.)
Sus comentarios me hicieron mucho daño. (His comments really hurt me.)
hacer cola — to queue / to stand in line
Tuvimos que hacer cola durante una hora. (We had to queue for an hour.)
Siempre hay que hacer cola en esa cafetería. (You always have to queue at that café.)
hacer ilusión — to be excited about / to look forward to
Me hace mucha ilusión verte pronto. (I’m really looking forward to seeing you soon.)
¿Te hace ilusión el viaje? (Are you excited about the trip?)
hacer tiempo — to kill time
Llegué pronto y tuve que hacer tiempo en una cafetería. (I arrived early and had to kill time in a café.)
¿Cómo hacemos tiempo hasta que abra el museo? (How do we kill time until the museum opens?)
One reason these expressions stick poorly for learners is that the base verbs are irregular and extremely common, so they show up everywhere: present, preterite, imperfect, subjunctive, commands. We cover all of that in VerbPal — all tenses, irregulars, reflexives, and the subjunctive — so you are not learning hacer falta in isolation and then freezing the first time you need no hizo falta or haga falta.
Hacer ilusión is a false friend trap for English speakers. Ilusión doesn't mean illusion here — it means excited anticipation. Me hace ilusión is positive. To talk about a false illusion or self-deception, you'd say hacerse ilusiones (to kid yourself). Same verb, very different meaning.
Action step: Pick three hacer expressions and write one sentence for each in the present, one in the preterite, and one with the subjunctive if possible. If you can produce the chunk across forms, you actually know it.
A quick-reference table
| Expression | Meaning |
|---|---|
| darse cuenta de | to realise |
| dar igual | to not matter |
| dar miedo | to frighten |
| dar pena | to feel sorry |
| dar la vuelta | to turn around |
| darse prisa | to hurry |
| dar un paseo | to go for a walk |
| dar las gracias | to thank |
| dar ánimo | to encourage |
| hacer falta | to need / be necessary |
| hacer caso | to listen / pay attention |
| hacerse | to become |
| hacer daño | to hurt |
| hacer cola | to queue |
| hacer ilusión | to be excited about |
| hacer tiempo | to kill time |
Put it into practice
Knowing the rule is one thing — producing it under pressure is another. That's the gap our drills are built to close. When you type full forms of dar and hacer from memory, spaced repetition using the SM-2 algorithm keeps the weak spots coming back at the right time, so expressions like me da igual and no hace falta stop being things you recognise and start becoming things you can actually say.
Try VerbPal free →Frequently asked questions
Why do dar and hacer have so many idiomatic uses?
High-frequency verbs in any language accumulate idiomatic meanings over centuries of use. Because dar and hacer appear so often in everyday speech, they’ve been recruited to carry a wide range of meanings beyond their literal ones. The same happens with get, take, and put in English.
How do I know whether to use dar or hacer in a given expression?
There’s no systematic rule — each expression is fixed. The most reliable approach is to learn each one as a memorised chunk rather than trying to reason from the base verb meaning. Over time, repeated exposure makes the right choice feel natural. Our advice: don’t stop at recognition. Type and say the full chunk repeatedly until it comes out as one unit.
Is darse cuenta always followed by de?
Yes. Darse cuenta requires de when followed by a noun or infinitive: me di cuenta de tu error (I realised your mistake), me di cuenta de estar equivocado (I realised I was wrong). When followed by a subordinate clause, use de que: me di cuenta de que tenías razón (I realised you were right).
What’s the difference between hacer daño and doler?
Hacer daño emphasises causing harm (often by an external agent or action), while doler describes experiencing pain. Me hago daño (I hurt myself) means I cause harm to myself. Me duele la pierna (My leg hurts) means I’m feeling pain. You can often use either, but hacer daño implies a cause.
Can I use these expressions in the past tense?
Absolutely. Just conjugate dar or hacer in whatever tense fits the context. Me dio mucho miedo (It scared me a lot), nos hizo falta más tiempo (We needed more time). The rest of the expression stays the same.
Pro Tip: Use the FAQ examples as mini production prompts. Cover the English, then try to produce the Spanish from memory in a different tense or person.