Have something done: this is how the passive voice is used in English
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 7:08 am
The construction of the type have something done is one of the ways of expressing the passive voice in English. In Spanish we translate it literally as “tener hecho algo”; in English it is used to say that someone has prepared or taiwan phone number list something for us without mentioning that someone. Let’s see how it is used in its passive version (we can also add the subject as we will see below).
The simple passive voice in English
The passive voice is a grammatical structure that is used much more in English than in Spanish. Let's give an example that sounds quite natural in English:
The songs are recorded by me .
It is very important that you learn well how it is formed, since there are other less “natural” examples of the passive voice in English, such as this one:
The girls buy sweets – Sweets are bought by the girls
The sentence is not incorrect, but it sounds unnatural, don't you think?
Have something done
The structure “ have something done ” in English is also a form of passive voice, that is, it is not the subject of the sentence that performs the action.
TO HAVE SOMETHING+PARTICIPLE
With this type of sentence we are talking about having asked someone to do something or about someone doing something for us. And we don't necessarily have to define who that someone is. Let's look at some examples to make it a little clearer:
The simple passive voice in English
The passive voice is a grammatical structure that is used much more in English than in Spanish. Let's give an example that sounds quite natural in English:
The songs are recorded by me .
It is very important that you learn well how it is formed, since there are other less “natural” examples of the passive voice in English, such as this one:
The girls buy sweets – Sweets are bought by the girls
The sentence is not incorrect, but it sounds unnatural, don't you think?
Have something done
The structure “ have something done ” in English is also a form of passive voice, that is, it is not the subject of the sentence that performs the action.
TO HAVE SOMETHING+PARTICIPLE
With this type of sentence we are talking about having asked someone to do something or about someone doing something for us. And we don't necessarily have to define who that someone is. Let's look at some examples to make it a little clearer: