From the room, last lesson
Six sentences taken down during the timeline stories. Two of them are perfectly grammatical and describe somebody who does not exist.
Six sentences. One problem each. The note says what actually happened.
1. We rewired the whole flat before we moved in. — an electrician did it
2. I am having done the kitchen in March.
3. We had the engineer to look at the wall.
4. By the time the builders started we had everything checked. — all of it was already finished
5. He had taken away his licence after the second offence. — the court took it
6. I translated my birth certificate for the visa. — a translation agency did it
The finding
No feedback, no repair
Almost everything you have been corrected on in ten years of English was corrected because somebody noticed. A sentence sounded wrong, a listener paused, a teacher underlined it, and eventually it changed. That is the mechanism, and it is a good one — but it only reaches errors that are audible.
This one is not. I cut my hair on Saturday is spelled correctly, built correctly and true of somebody. It is simply true of a person standing at a mirror with scissors rather than of you sitting in a chair paying forty pounds. Nothing underlines it, nobody interrupts, and the listener quietly forms the wrong picture and moves on. So there is no feedback, and where there is no feedback there is no repair, which is why this particular error survives into C1 in people who can conjugate anything.
It is not a knowledge problem either — everybody in this room formed have something done correctly in Lesson 3. It is a reach problem, and the reason is that Portuguese does not force the choice. Cortei o cabelo, pintei a casa, arrumei o carro: the same verb covers doing it and arranging it, and the speaker never has to decide. English makes you decide every single time, and the default when you do not decide is the version where you held the tools.
Which points at the repair, and it is not a grammar drill. It is a question you ask yourself while you are speaking: did I do this, or did I pay somebody? Four words, asked at the moment of the verb. That is a habit rather than a rule, and habits are built by being caught — which is what the rest of today is for.
The other four errors in this area are ordinary and audible, and they get fixed the ordinary way. It is worth knowing which is which: one of these five needs a new habit, and four just need practice.
Three questions.
1. Why does this error survive into C1?
2. What kind of problem is it?
3. What is the repair?
Five errors, and the sound of an arrangement
What goes wrong, and what the listener does about it
| Error | Example | Repair, and why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · True of the wrong person | I had my hair cut. The listener does nothing at all, which is the problem. Ask the four-word question at the verb. | |
| 2 · Participle before the thing | We are having the kitchen done. The thing always comes between the auxiliary and the participle. Mandei fazer puts them the other way round. | |
| 3 · The stray to | We had the plumber look at it. Bare after have, make, let; to after get, ask, persuade. And to comes back when make goes passive: I was made to wait. | |
| 4 · The missing second auxiliary | We had had everything replaced. One had is the past perfect, the other is the arrangement. Both are needed, and the result looks like a typing error. | |
| 5 · The victim as agent | He had his licence taken away. Word order alone decides whether he lost a licence or confiscated one. |
And one that is not an error, only a waste. I had my hair cut by a hairdresser. Nobody imagined otherwise. Name an agent only when the listener could not have guessed it.
The sound of it. Three things, and all three are audible from across a room.
1 · have and get are weak. I (h)əd my hair cut. We(’)ve (h)əd it done. Learners stress the auxiliary because it is the grammar they are pleased with, and stressing it makes the sentence sound like a contradiction.
2 · The participle at the end carries the main stress and needs its full length: we had the flat reWIRED, not a clipped final syllable.
3 · In had had, the first is weak and the second is not: we’d HAD it done. Contract the first one and the sequence stops sounding impossible.
Say all three aloud twice. This is ninety seconds of work and it is the part that transfers to speech.
Use the word in capitals to form a word that fits the gap. All eight belong to the vocabulary of paying somebody else.
- The quote did not include or removal of the old units. INSTALL
- We asked for a written that the date would not move again. ASSURE
- The work has to be carried out by a contractor. LICENCE
- The policy covers as well as repair. REPLACE
- The first quote turned out to be wholly . REAL
- The invoice arrived with no of the extra charge. EXPLAIN
- The second firm was noticeably more about turning up. RELY
- The whole process was complicated by one missing form. NECESSARY
Four questions.
1. Where does the thing go?
2. They made me ___, and later I ___ wait again.
3. Which word is weak in we had the flat rewired?
4. What is the four-word question?
Catching it in flight
Eight gaps. Every option is grammatical English. Choose the one that is true of the person telling the story.
My grandmother lived in the same flat for fifty-one years and had almost nothing done to it in all that time. When she died we before we could put it on the market, and the surveyor’s list ran to two pages. We first, because everything else depended on it, and the electrician found a junction box behind the wardrobe that he described as a museum piece. Then we — she had painted them herself in 1974 and you could still see the brush marks, which I minded more than I expected to. My brother on the second day, from the pavement outside, while he was carrying boxes; the police were very kind and entirely useless. By the time the photographs were taken we every room, and the flat looked like nowhere anybody had ever lived. It sold in nine days. The buyers before they exchanged, which found nothing, and then the week they moved in. Last month I walked past and someone the window frames dark green, which my grandmother would have hated and I rather like.
Eight sentences. Seven need work; one is correct as written.
1. I serviced the car before the holiday. — the garage did it
2. She is having repaired her laptop this week.
3. We got the landlord replace the boiler in the end.
4. They had taken away his passport at the border. — the officials took it
5. By the time we exchanged, we had all the work done. — it was already finished
6. I had my suit altered by a tailor.
7. We had the surveyor to check the damp.
8. He got his eyes tested for the first time in eleven years. — correct as written
The four-word question, out loud
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 10 minutes
Five minutes each on any topic that involves your home, your body, your car or your documents. Your partner is listening for one thing only.
Every sentence that puts you holding the tools gets stopped, at the moment it is said.
- Listener: say "tools?" the instant you hear the speaker doing work they did not do. Do not wait for the end of the sentence.
- Speaker: when stopped, do not apologise. Say the four-word question aloud — did I do this, or did I pay somebody? — and then say the sentence again.
- Keep a tally. Ten in five minutes is normal at the start; the number should fall visibly in the second half.
- Finish by saying your three commonest ones properly, with the auxiliary weak and the participle full length.
Why the interruption is the whole point. This error has never been corrected because nothing in ordinary life corrects it. Ten minutes of somebody saying tools? supplies, artificially, exactly the feedback the error has been missing — and that is what builds the habit, not the table.
What the tally did
Two questions.
1. What happened to your count between the first and second five minutes?
2. When you were stopped, did the sentence feel wrong?
One habit, four drills
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. Which of the five errors needs a habit rather than practice?
2. In we’d had it done, which had is stressed?
Next. Three hundred and twenty words on something you arranged and did not do — written, where nobody is going to say tools? at you.