"Have Something Done"

One of the ways we use the passive voice is to talk about an action without saying who did it.

Click Here for Step-by-Step Rules, Stories and Exercises to Practice All English Tenses

For example, we can see this person relaxing because someone else is taking care of his problems! How can we express this meaning with the passive voice?


There is a special passive construction with have:



In this construction, like in all passive sentences, we need to use the past participle.

Remember that for regular verbs, this is the same as the simple past.

However, for irregular verbs, the past participle can be different!

Be sure to review them and use the correct form of the verb in passive constructions.

We can use this construction in the following cases:

1. We make someone else do something for us, or we pay someone else to do something for us.
   
   
2. Something negative happens and we have no control over it (something bad happens to us).

First, let's talk about when someone else does something that we ask of them.

Example:

• Jeremy's car is in terrible condition! He is going to have his car fixed. He hopes it won't be too expensive!

This means that Jeremy will not do the work himself. He will pay a professional mechanic to do the work for him. He will have the work done to his car.


More examples:

• The living room in Terry's new house is a terrible salmon pink color. She wants to have it painted before she moves in.
  
  
• Lizzy can't talk right now. She's having her hair cut by the barber at the moment.
  
  
• I need to go to the dentist today to have a tooth pulled. I hope it's very fast!
  
  
• Will you have your party catered, or are you going to cook all the food yourself?
  
  
• Emily had her dress sewn by a professional seamstress. She wanted it to look perfect for her special day!

We can use this construction in any of the English verb tenses. All we need to do is use the correct form of have depending on the verb tense we are using. The rest of the construction (object + past participle) remains exactly the same.


Now, let's look at the second meaning of have + object + past participle.

We can also use this construction when something negative happens to us when we don't expect it or want it.

Example:

• The homeowner had all his money stolen! The police still haven't caught the mysterious robber.

Please share this page with others: