Have Something Done

Have Something Done

Corto o cabelo?” “Não, tirei pra lavar!”

~PIADA DE TIOZÃO~

Baixe essa aula em PDF: Lesson #18 – Have Something Done

Heeeeeey you guys, how’s it going?

We started today’s lesson with a BIG UNCLE’S JOKE (risos) because today we are learning how we can say “Cortei meu cabelo” in Elglish!

Wait! It’s easy: I cut my hair!

Weeeell, not quite like that.

When you say something like: I cut my hair, I painted my house people understand that you did those things yourself, and not the hairdresser or the painter.

So, in order to say “Cortei meu cabelo” and mean the same as we do in Portuguese (I went to the hairdresser and THEY cut my hair) you will say:

I HAD MY HAIR CUT

Looks kinda weird, doesn’t it? Only if you translate. And remember:

TRANSLATION SUCKS!!!!1!!!ELEVEN!!!!!!!

Check some more examples:

I had my house painted (a painter painted it for you)

I have my house cleaned every Thursday (Someone cleans you house for you)

I’m having my house remodeled (There’s someone remodeling your house for you)

My computer broke down. I need to have it fixed (If you don’t know how to fiz your computer, someone else will have to do it for you, right?)

See? Whenever we want to say that someone does, did or will do something for us, but it is not important to say WHO, we use the structure as follows:

SUBJECT + HAVE + SOMETHINH (object) + PAST PARTICIPLE (done)

The ver HAVE behaves like a common verb, so we wil conjugate it in order to state the tense (present, past or future), as you saw in the examples (had, have, am having, need to have, etc)

Tá, e agora?