The Passive: have something done (Causative have)

We use a causative verb 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. For example, we can say:

• I cleaned my house. (This means I cleaned it myself).

If I paid someone to clean it, of course I can say:

• A cleaner cleaned my house.

But, another way is to use a causative construction. So I can also say:

• I had my house cleaned.

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.

Have + object + past participle (have something done)

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’.

• I had my car washed.
• John will have his house painted.

Get + object + past participle (get something done)

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

• The students get their essays checked.
• I’ll get my hair cut next week.
• He got his washing machine fixed.

Have someone do something (have + person + infinitive)

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

• I had the electrician look at my broken light.
• The doctor will have the nurse call the patients.
• The teacher had the students write the answers on the whiteboard.

Get someone to do something (get + person + to + infinitive)

Finally, we can also use the construction ‘get + someone + to + infinitive’. Again, this means that you cause the other person to do the action, maybe by paying them to do it, or by asking them to do it, or by persuading them to do it.

• She gets her son to do his homework by promising him ice cream when he’s finished.
• I got the cleaner to clean under the cupboards.

Sometimes, this construction has the feeling that we needed to convince someone to do something, while the other constructions on this page are neutral.

Practice:

Causatives 1

Causatives 2

The Passive

When should we use the Passive?

1. When we want to change the focus of the sentence:
   • The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. (We are more interested in the painting than the artist in this sentence)
2. When who or what causes the action is unknown or unimportant or obvious or ‘people in general’:
   • He was arrested (obvious agent, the police).
   • My bike has been stolen (unknown agent).
   • The road is being repaired (unimportant agent).
   • The form can be obtained from the post office (people in general).
3. In factual or scientific writing:
   • The chemical is placed in a test tube and the data entered into the computer.
4. In formal writing instead of using someone/ people/ they (these can be used in speaking or informal writing):
   • The brochure will be finished next month.
5. In order to put the new information at the end of the sentence to improve style:
   • Three books are used regularly in the class. The books were written by Dr. Bell. (‘Dr. Bell wrote the books’ sound clumsy)
6. When the subject is very long:
   • I was surprised by how well the students did in the test. (More natural than: ‘how well the students did in the test surprised me’)

An active sentence like I drank two cups of coffee has the subject first (the person or thing that does the verb), followed by the verb, and finally the object (the person or thing that the action happens to).

So, in this example, the subject is ‘I’, the verb is ‘drank’ and the object is ‘two cups of coffee’.

But, we don’t always need to make sentences this way. We might want to put the object first, or perhaps we don’t want to say who did something. This can happen for lots of reasons (see the explanation further down the page). In this case, we can use a passive, which puts the object first:

• Two cups of coffee were drunk (we can add ‘by me’ if we want, but it isn’t necessary).

How to make the Passive in English

We make the passive by putting the verb ‘to be’ into whatever tense we need and then adding the past participle. For regular verbs, we make the past participle by adding ‘ed’ to the infinitive. So play becomes played. Click here to learn about irregular verbs.

Tense	Active	Passive
present simple	I make a cake.	A cake is made (by me).
present continuous	I am making a cake.	A cake is being made (by me).
past simple	I made a cake.	A cake was made (by me).
past continuous	I was making a cake.	A cake was being made(by me).
present perfect	I have made a cake.	A cake has been made (by me).
pres. perf. continuous	I have been making a cake.	A cake has been being made (by me).
past perfect	I had made a cake.	A cake had been made(by me).
future simple	I will make a cake.	A cake will be made (by me).
future perfect	I will have madea cake.	A cake will have been made (by me).

Exercises here:

Exercise 1:  present simple passive 

Exercise 2: past simpel passive

Exercise 3: present perfect passive

Exercise 4: Future simple passive

Exercise 5: Mixed tense passive

Exercise 6: verbs with 2 objects