Make up vs make up for
How would you say this?
If a car needs to be somewhere and leaves late or a train...
How would you phrase the whole sentence?
He’s driving faster to make up for the 40 minute delay.
He’s driving fast to make up the 40 minute delay.
He drove faster and made up 40 minutes.
Is this natural? What would you change?
We’ve made up for 12 of the 21 minutes the train was late. We left 21 min late and only arrive 9 min late.
Thanks
Top answer
He's driving faster to make up the 40 minutes. Your first sentence is OK, too, but I think a native speaker would go to the shorter version when "make up" is in play, because "make up for" has overtones of atonement and you wouldn't ordinarily mean that. The second sentence is not so good; you don't make up the delay, you make up the time.
- He's driving faster to make up the 40 minutes.
- Your first sentence is OK, too, but I think a native speaker would go to the shorter version when "make up" is in play, because "make up for" has overtones of atonement and you wouldn't ordinarily mean that.
- The second sentence is not so good; you don't make up the delay, you make up the time.
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He's driving faster to make up the 40 minutes. Your first sentence is OK, too, but I think a native speaker would go to the shorter version when "make up" is in play, because "make up for" has overtones of atonement and you wouldn't ordinarily mean that. The second sentence is not so good; you don't make up the delay, you make up the time.
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