电话

电话 is a noun, but the action of calling borrows a fixed partner verb. That partner is 打, which literally means 'hit.' English says 'make a call,' so learners reach for 做, and it lands wrong every single time. Answering has its own partner: 接, literally 'receive.' So you 打电话 when you dial, and 接电话 when you pick up. Name the person and the 给 must come first: 给他打电话, never 打电话他.

English happily turns 'phone' into a verb, so 我电话你 feels logical. Mandarin 电话 never carries the action by itself; it needs 打 in front to work. So 'I'll call you' is 我给你打个电话, and 'call me' is 给我打个电话. Keep 给 before the person and 打 before 电话, and you'll never sound like a translated robot.

Chinese loves laying the topic out front and then saying something about it. In 电话不能打, the phone is the topic and 不能打 is the comment hanging on it. 不能打电话 also works, but it focuses on the action being impossible rather than the phone being useless. The same shape shows up constantly: 他不能来, 这个字我不认识. “超市非常小， 电脑没脑子， 电话不能打。” (The supermarket is very small, computers have no brain, and the phone can't make calls.) ── [《电脑没脑子》](/read/computers-have-no-brains#s2)

In everyday mainland Mandarin, 手机 is the device in your hand, and 电话 usually means a fixed line or the act of calling. So 'my phone is dead' is 我手机没电了, never 我电话没电了. 电话 still shows up in 电话号码 and 接电话, where the meaning is the call, not the handset. Mixing these two up marks you as a beginner faster than any tone mistake.