電話する or 電話をする to form the verb


I'd like to know if there is any difference between 電話する and 電話をする, if they
mean the same, or if 電話をする doesn't even exist.

I ask this because in an exercise in my book it says to use をする with 電話 to
form the verb, but on the online dictionary I usually check it says it's 電話する,
without を.

Dictionary link: <http://tangorin.com/general/%E9%9B%BB%E8%A9%B1>




> I ask this because in an exercise in my book it says to use をする with 電話 to
> form the verb, but on the online dictionary I usually check it says it's
> 電話する, without を.

Similar to [fefe's answer on a closely related
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/4007/29), 電話をする is really a
phrase, not a "word", so it probably wouldn't show up in a dictionary as a
unit.

In this case, it might be fair to say that the meanings are the same. In some
ways it can be compared to "I'll give X a call" vs "I'll call X". There are
corner cases where the former could sound "odd", but for all practical
purposes they mean the same thing.

One technical note: を shouldn't be used with 電話をする to indicate the topic of
the phone call, whereas it can be used with 電話する... following a more general
rule about not having more than one を in a clause.

