"He made me to laugh": make, let, and have when Spanish says «hacer que»

You walk out of the movie theater and text your friend in Chicago: "The movie made me to cry." She gets it, but that to jumps off the screen. Then you tell her "I cut my hair" after a visit to a new salon, and she asks whether you did it yourself.

Spanish «hacer que», «dejar» and a bare «me corté» don't map onto one English verb each. They map onto four frames. Make and let take the infinitive without to: made me cry, let me go. Have and get cover things someone else does for you: I got my hair cut. And only the passive brings to back: I was made to wait. Learn the frames as blocks. Don't translate the verb.

"Made me cry" or "made me to cry"? Drop the to#

The extra to after make and let is the most common verb error in causative sentences, whatever the learner's native language. In a corpus of essays by students with 16 different mother tongues, Spanish among them, Gaëtanelle Gilquin found that mixing up the infinitive with and without to accounts for 77% of all verb-related errors in causative constructions. The to after active make alone explains some 80% of all verb-related errors with make.

This mistake isn't a Spanish fingerprint. «Me hizo llorar» has no particle; the to is copied from want someone to or ask someone to.

Active make takes the bare infinitive. Cambridge's grammar is clear: The boss made me work an extra day, not made me to work. At an office in Dublin, your boss keeps you late and you text your partner:

Wrong: "My boss made me to stay until nine."
Right: "My boss made me stay until nine."

Let follows the same rule as make. Cambridge gives She let me look at the photos, not let me to look. At Heathrow security, the officer waves your bottle through, and you tell the friend waiting at the gate:

Wrong: "The guard let me to keep my water bottle."
Right: "The guard let me keep my water bottle."

"Made cry my mom": the mistake that does come from Spanish#

The causative slip that research does tie to Spanish is word order. Spanish puts the person after the infinitive: «hizo llorar a mi madre», «hizo reír a todos». Gilquin reports that this postponed person shows up often in the Spanish and Italian subcorpora and traces it to Romance word order. In English it goes in the middle: make + person + verb.

On a Sunday you watch Coco with your mom and tell your English class group chat:

Wrong: "The movie made cry my mom."
Right: "The movie made my mom cry."

Another causative error sounds Spanish but isn't: using an intransitive verb as if it meant «hacer que». Cabrera and Zubizarreta studied 166 participants, 60 of them Peruvian university students learning English, and beginner and intermediate learners accepted sentences like Peter arrived Mary at school. Spanish rejects «Pedro llegó a María» too, so it isn't a calque. «Me llevó a casa» is she took me home, not she arrived me home. Gilquin sums it up: "learners’ causative constructions are often unidiomatic in that they contain verbs which are unlikely to occur in native English with that particular construction". It's a normal stage, and Silvina Montrul confirms it: "With higher proficiency, L2 learners eventually recover from overgeneralizations."

"Me corté el pelo": have and get when someone else does it#

In Spanish a plain verb already means "I had it done." The RAE illustrates the causative verb with «Me he cortado el pelo en una peluquería nueva» ("I've had my hair cut at a new salon"). Latin America also has «Mandé a arreglar el carro», recorded in the RAE's Nueva gramática.

English marks the service with have or get + object + past participle. Cambridge contrasts I had my hair cut (someone else cut it) with I've cut my hair (you cut it yourself). The BBC teaches it the same way: "if I say 'I cut my hair', that means that I cut it myself".

I cut my hair isn't wrong, just ambiguous. Adele Goldberg, as cited by Terumi Kaneko, notes that a plain verb can describe a job you paid for, as in she painted her house when painters did the work. Still, I cut my hair suggests your own scissors, which is how Cambridge and the BBC teach it. Walking out of a barbershop in Denver, I got my hair cut leaves no doubt.

I fixed my car is a different story: it means you did the work yourself. You pick up your car at a repair shop in Houston and tell a coworker:

Wrong: "I fixed my car at a garage near the office."
Right: "I got my car fixed at a garage near the office."

Get or have depends on the country. In published American books, get my hair cut shows up about 2.8 times as often as have my hair cut; in British books, had my hair cut beats got my hair cut by the same ratio. These are books, not conversation.

If you name who does the job, get takes to, as in I got them to fix the brakes. Have doesn't: Cambridge gives He had Kay make us all some tea.

"I was made to wait": the passive does take to#

The passive of make requires to. Cambridge gives The people were made to wait outside. Samantha Laporte found that be made + to made up 7 out of 40 hits (18%) of causative make in native student writing, a small sample. In learner writing, by contrast, it is "nearly absent". You tell your Boston landlord about your morning at the immigration office:

Wrong: "They made us to wait three hours in the hallway."
Right: "They made us wait three hours in the hallway." or "We were made to wait three hours in the hallway."

Let has no passive when it means "allow." Cambridge rules out We weren't let take photographs and asks for We weren't allowed to take photographs.

Could you say this out loud right now: "My boss made me stay late, so I got my car fixed on Saturday"? Tabla trains exactly that step: you see the sentence in Spanish, say it in English out loud, and its adaptive review brings it back before the extra to sneaks in again.

Translate without thinking: «Me hicieron esperar una hora y luego me arreglaron el móvil gratis».

"They made me wait an hour, and then I got my phone fixed for free." Active make takes no to, and someone else did the repair: get + object + past participle. In the passive, to comes back: I was made to wait an hour.

Next time you're about to say made me to, drop the to and put the person right after make.

Try this today: record a one-minute voice note about something you were made to do this week and something you had fixed, using one made me, one let me, and one got my … fixed, then play it back listening for any extra to.