Have/get - T3

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 3

Today's lesson

- causative verbs have & get

Change the sentence so that someone else did it. Use had.
I cleaned my house.

Change the sentence. Use had.
My brother repaired his car.

In a sense, using a causative verb is similar to using a passive. The important thing is that the house is now clean. We don't focus on who did the cleaning.

We use a causative verb (have or get) when we want to talk about something that someone else did for us or for another person. It means that the subject caused the action to happen, but didn't do it themselves. Maybe they paid, or asked, or persuaded the other person to do it.

Change the sentence. Use have.
I washed my car.

Change the sentence. Use have.
John will paint his house.

The verb tense must be the same as the example sentence.

We usually use 'have something done' when we are talking about paying someone to do something for us. 

It's often used for services. 

The form is 'subject + have + object + past participle'.

John  will have his car painted.

Change this sentence. Use get.
I will cut my hair next week.

Change this sentence. Use get.
He fixed his washing machine

We can also use 'subject + get + object + past participle'. This has the same meaning as 'have', but is less formal.

informal: John got his car fixed last week.

I'll get my hair cut next week.

formal: I will have my hair cut next week. 

Change the sentence. Use have.
The electrician looked at my broken light. Start with: I ...

Change the sentence. Use have.
The students write the answers on the whiteboard. Start with: the teacher

The doctor will have the nurse call the patients.

The teacher had the students write the answers on the whiteboard.

We can also use the construction 'subject + have + person + infinitive'. This has a very similar meaning to 'have something done', but this time we say who did the thing - we talk about the person who we asked to do the thing for us.

Change the sentence. Use got.
The cleaner cleaned the toilet.
Start with: I ...

Change the sentence. Use get.
Her son did his homework.
Start with: She ...

We can also use the construction 'get + someone + to + infinitive'. Again, you get someone else to do something but this construction has the feeling that we needed to convince someone to do something while to other contstruction are more neutral. 

She gets her son to do his homework by promising him ice cream when he's finished.

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