By Jacqueline Schaalje

Illustrations by Akau Anyieth

Now some more about have in the meaning of have someone do something for you.

If you’ve read the article about have, you know that this sentence: “I have my gardener take care of my garden,” means that the gardener is doing my garden because I asked him to.

Now instead of have someone do something for you, you can also use get.

So I can also say:

I get my gardener to take care of my garden.

What’s the difference with the sentences with have?

That you need to put in “to.”

I hope you’ve noticed that!

I’m putting the sentences here again. Have a look for yourself at the difference.

I have my gardener take care of my garden.

I get my gardener to take care of my garden.

You see, the sentence with “get” gets “to” in front of the verb.

Again, as with have, you can use the get in the past or future or in any tense you like.

Here are some more examples:

I got my neighbour to water my flowers when I was away.

Enrique is getting his dog to eat new vitamin-rich pet food.

Anouk gets her son to call her every night to make sure they’re both okay.

The Smiths will get their travel agent to make them reservations for a guided tour in Milan.

I got my father to bring me soup when I was ill.

Did you get your parents to read you stories when you were little?

 

To practise, do this quiz.

Quiz

Rewrite the sentences to a sentence with get. Look at the example.

Use the present when the present is used, the past when the past is used, etc.

Example:

I’ll have the waiter remove the onion from my salad.

You type:

I’ll get the waiter to remove the onion from my salad.

Click here to do this quiz online. 

 

1 My personal trainer has me do thirty push-ups.

2 Did you have your children clean the playroom?

3 Their lawyer had them wait a long time before he was able to receive them.

 

4 The newspaper editor is having him check his piece again for facts.

5 We’ll have our guide reserve our tickets for the museum.

 

6 The company has its customer reps answer any questions.

 

Order more quizzes here: http://englishwithasmile.net/order/