Learn how to say that you arrange for someone else to do something for you.
You do not repair your own car, cut your own hair, or rewire your own house — you arrange for a professional to do it. English has a special structure for exactly this idea: the causative. Instead of saying "A mechanic repaired my car," a fluent speaker says "I had my car repaired." The focus moves from the worker to you and the result.
This is one of the most useful everyday structures at B2. It lets you talk naturally about services, repairs, and delegation — and it also describes unpleasant things that happen to you ("I had my phone stolen").
The causative comes in two families: one where you mention the thing (passive causative), and one where you mention the person who does the job.
| Structure | Pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Passive causative (thing) | have + object + past participle | We had the house painted. |
| Passive causative (informal) | get + object + past participle | We got the house painted. |
| Active (person) with have | have + person + base verb | We had a builder paint it. |
| Active (person) with get | get + person + to-infinitive | We got a builder to paint it. |
This is the most common form and the one you will use every day. You pay for or arrange a service, and you talk about the result, not the worker.
| Ordinary sentence | Causative | Why it is better |
|---|---|---|
| A dentist checked my teeth. | I had my teeth checked. | The worker is not important; the service is. |
| Someone will fix the roof. | We are getting the roof fixed. | Natural way to talk about arranging a job. |
| A shop is printing her a T-shirt. | She is having a T-shirt printed. | Works in any tense — just change 'have'. |
Sometimes you want to say who did the job. Both have and get work — but they take a different verb form. This is the classic B2 trap.
| Verb | Followed by | Example |
|---|---|---|
| have | person + base form (no 'to') | I had the mechanic check the engine. |
| get | person + to-infinitive | I got the mechanic to check the engine. |
Two more verbs follow a similar person + base-verb pattern, but with different meanings. Keep them separate from the causative of service.
| Verb | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| make + person + base | force someone to do something | They made me apologise. |
| let + person + base | allow someone to do something | They let me leave early. |
| have + person + base | arrange / ask (neutral) | They had me fill in a form. |
The passive causative also describes something that happened to you — often unpleasant — even though you did not arrange it. The form is identical: have + object + past participle.
These are the errors B2 students make with the causative. Check your own sentences against every row.
| Wrong ✗ | Right ✓ | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| I had my car repair. | I had my car repaired. | The object is a thing → past participle, not base. |
| I got the plumber fix the leak. | I got the plumber to fix the leak. | get + person needs the to-infinitive. |
| She had the artist to paint a mural. | She had the artist paint a mural. | have + person takes the base form, no 'to'. |
| They made me to sign it. | They made me sign it. | make + person + base form (no 'to'). |
| I did cut my hair yesterday. (I paid for it) | I had my hair cut yesterday. | Use the causative when someone did it for you. |
Two friends talk about a bedroom that one of them is doing up as a little studio. Read it twice and watch the causative forms working together: passive causative for services, and 'get someone to' for people.
Choose the correct answer. — 10 questions, each one is marked instantly. Questions get harder as you go.
Learn the words, then use them to talk about services you arrange and jobs you delegate.
Write 8 sentences about jobs you get done by other people — at home, at school, or for a hobby. Use at least 8 of the words above.
Sentence starters (you can begin with these):
Değerlendirme öğretmenin tarafından yapılacak. (Your teacher will review your task.)
Read the text, then answer the questions.
Good readers prepare before they start. Before you read, think about these three questions (you do not need to write the answers):
Words to spot (from the Speaking section): renovate · hire · outsource · install · reliable · faulty · maintenance · refurbish
Deniz always dreamed of running her own photography channel, yet she knew almost nothing about decorating or editing. When her parents finally let her turn the spare room into a small studio last spring, the place was a complete mess. Therefore, instead of trying to do everything herself, she decided to get other people to help.
At school, Deniz was already the person her friends turned to whenever a class project needed to look professional. During her media course the previous year, she had had a dull history presentation completely redesigned by two classmates, and the teacher was so impressed that she had it shown to every other group as a model. That small success planted a bigger idea in her head. She wanted a proper channel, a real space where she could film interviews with students, cover school matches and review the books everyone was arguing about online. However, dreaming about a studio and actually building one, she soon realised, were two very different challenges.
First, she had the walls repainted in soft grey, and she got a carpenter to build the shelves along one side. Although the old lights were faulty, she did not panic; she simply had them replaced by a reliable electrician. Moreover, she got a friend who studies design to create her logo, whereas her cousin, who is good with computers, set up her website for free.
The practical side turned out to be the hardest part of all. Because none of her friends knew much about wiring or measurements, she learned quickly that it was wiser to trust people who genuinely did. She had the floor measured properly before ordering a deep blue rug online, and she got an older student from the school film club to lend her a spare microphone stand. Meanwhile, her younger brother, who is endlessly curious, kept asking to help, so she let him test the lighting while an adult supervised. Slowly the messy spare room started to feel like somewhere a real creator might actually work, and her confidence grew with every finished job.
Not everything went smoothly, however. Two weeks before her first big post, someone broke into the changing rooms at school, and she had her new camera stolen from her locker. Nevertheless, Deniz refused to give up. She had the lock replaced the next morning, and since her family's insurance covered most of the loss, she got another camera delivered within days.
The theft shook her far more than she admitted at first. For a few days she seriously thought about abandoning the whole idea, especially since a couple of classmates teased her, calling a school studio a childish dream. Her best friend, Aylin, disagreed completely. 'You have already got half the school talking about your channel,' she said firmly. 'Do not let one stolen camera decide your future.' Encouraged by those words, Deniz did something braver than simply replacing the equipment: she turned the setback into content. She filmed a short, honest video about the break-in and how she coped, and within a week it had become her most shared post yet.
That video taught her an important lesson about online life. Suddenly hundreds of strangers were leaving comments, and while most were kind, a few were unpleasant and even cruel. Rather than arguing with them at midnight, she had a simple rule agreed with her parents: any nasty message would be screenshotted, reported and then ignored. Moreover, she got the channel's privacy settings checked by her school's IT teacher, so that her home address and timetable could never be worked out from her clips. Managing an audience, she discovered, meant protecting yourself as carefully as you edited your videos, and she was determined to grow up sensibly rather than chase views at any cost.
These days Deniz rarely does the boring jobs herself. She has her photos checked by an online mentor every month, and she gets her equipment serviced twice a year. She still takes every photograph personally, though — that part she will never hand to anyone else.
Since then, her channel has grown in ways she never expected. She now coordinates a small team of volunteers from the debate club and the sports society, and each of them handles a task that suits their strengths. One friend, who plays basketball for the school, films short training clips that Deniz later edits into weekly highlights, whereas another, who loves writing, has her captions checked for spelling before anything goes live. She has even started getting her thumbnails designed by a younger student who is brilliant at drawing. Balancing homework, matches and uploads is genuinely exhausting; nevertheless, she insists that sharing the work with people she trusts is exactly what keeps the whole project alive.
Her teachers have noticed the change in her too. In debate lessons she now speaks with the calm confidence of someone used to a camera, and she recently had one of her interview clips entered into a regional student media competition by her media teacher. Although she did not win first place, the judges praised how clearly she explained complicated ideas, which she said meant more to her than any prize. When younger students ask her for advice, she always gives the same answer. Learn to do the important things yourself, she tells them, but never be too proud to have the rest done by people who are better at it than you are.
'You cannot do everything alone,' she says. 'A good creator knows exactly what to do herself and what to have done by others.'
Choose the correct answer.
Are these sentences true or false, according to the text?
Complete each sentence with ONE word from the text. Mind the causative form (have/get + object + past participle).
Write your answer in your own words. These questions are not marked automatically.
1. Why did Deniz decide to have the work done by others instead of doing it herself?
2. How did Deniz react when her camera was stolen two weeks before her first big post?
3. What is the one job Deniz still does herself, and why do you think she keeps it?
Find these connectors in the text — each one appears at least once: however, therefore, nevertheless, although, whereas, moreover, since, yet. (You will use these same connectors in the Writing section.) Note them down, then check.
Haruka interviews Mark about his podcast, Zen Sammich, and what making one is really like.
You will hear an interview: Haruka asks Mark about his podcast — how it started, how much work it is, and his advice for beginners. You will listen TWICE. First listen: answer questions 1-5. Second listen: answer questions 6-10. (Kaydı İKİ kez dinleyeceksin: ilk dinlemede 1-5, ikinci dinlemede 6-10.)
Write and submit your paragraph; your teacher will review it.
At B1 you linked ideas with and, but, so, because. At B2 you sound noticeably more advanced when you use formal, precise connectors. Four of them are essential this unit — and two familiar ones, although and however, become sharper tools.
| Connector | Use it to... | Example |
|---|---|---|
| moreover | add a stronger, extra point | I had my bike fixed. Moreover, I got my room repainted. |
| therefore | show a logical result | My charger was faulty; therefore, I had it replaced. |
| whereas | contrast two ideas directly | I did the painting myself, whereas I had the shelves put up. |
| nevertheless | say "in spite of that" | It was expensive. Nevertheless, I hired a professional. |
| although | concede a point inside one sentence | Although I could not do it alone, I managed the project. |
| however | contrast between two sentences | I planned to save money. However, I had to hire help. |
See the difference — the same facts, written two ways:
| Basic linking ✗ | Confident B2 writing ✓ |
|---|---|
| I renovated my room. It was hard. I could not do it all. I asked people. It looks good now. | I decided to renovate my room, but I could not do it all alone. Therefore, I had the walls repainted and got an electrician to install new lights. Although it was hard, the room looks wonderful now. |
A "project you managed" paragraph has three parts. The skeleton stays the same — you change the content, not the structure:
| Part | What to write | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Opening | A topic sentence about the project | Last year I decided to do up my old bedroom. |
| 2. Body | Tell the story with causative forms. Use "have/get something done" for services and "get someone to do" for people. Link with B2 connectors. | I had the walls repainted, and I got a carpenter to build the shelves. Nevertheless, I had a delivery sent to the wrong address. |
| 3. Closing | A final comment about the result or the future | I have not finished decorating yet, therefore I still have plans. |
Write about a project you managed — doing up your room, planning a school event, or setting up a channel — where you got jobs done by other people. Use the causative structures of this unit.
Değerlendirme öğretmenin tarafından yapılacak. (Your teacher will evaluate your writing.)
Mixed questions from the whole unit, then check what you can do.
14 questions: grammar + vocabulary + reading + listening. Each question is marked instantly.
Tick what you can do now. Honest answers help your teacher.
İşaretlemediğin madde varsa ilgili bölüme dönüp tekrar çalış — soldaki menüden her bölüme geri dönebilirsin.
Oturum kontrol ediliyor...