2.4 Andrés had his car repaired last week.

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 By Diego Cupolo. C. Commons

Andrés's car broke down two weeks ago. He took it to the garage and used a bicycle while it was being repaired. Fortunately, he had it repaired last week.

 

In this short passage, there are two sentences with a passive sense! Which ones? 

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Causative "have"

There is a structure in English which is similar to the passive voice. It is known as "Causative have". Have a look at the following chart to see how it is formed.

Subject To have/To get1
 Direct Object
 Past Participle Complements
Andrés had / got his car
 repaired last week
Paco's parents
 have / get
 their house painted every year

As you may notice, this structure is used in this way because the subject is not the doer or performer of the action, someone else does it. In Spanish, the structure is completely different. Normally, the examples given would be said: Andrés arregló el coche la semana pasada (although Andrés was not the mechanic) and Los padres de Paco pintan la casa todos los años (although they are not the painters).

Watch the following video to get further information about the causative have.


1 Normally, to get is more frequently used in informal spoken English and to have in formal English!


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Click here to watch a wonderful presentation concerning the causative use of to have. And by clicking here, you will be able to practice it by doing some exercises.

To get further information and practice, click here. It is worth it!


Finally, another structure in English which has a passive sense is formed with the verb NEED.

 

Subject Need Gerund Complements
Andrés's car
 needed repairing  
Paco's parents' house needs painting as soon as possible

 

 

 

Passive sense:

  • Andrés's car needed to be repaired.
  • Paco's parents' house needs to be painted as soon as possible.
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If you click here, you will find an excellent summary with lots of examples of everything studied about the passive voice in this topic. We highly recommend that you have a deep look at it!

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Use the causative have or need + gerund to rewrite the following sentences.
By Great Beyond. C. Commons

1. Someone is washing my car for me.

I .

2. I asked someone to paint the gate last week.

I last week.

3. Andrés must change his car's tyres.

Andrés's .

4. He is going to ask the mechanic to change the tyres.

He is by the mechanic.

5. We must find someone to clean the carpets.

The .

  

This is the end of the passive voice. In order to finish the unit we are going to pay some attention to another vowel sound in English, concretely, to /a:/. But this will be in the following section! Come on, move on to it!
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