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  • Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid.

  • In this lesson, I'll show you an advanced way to improve your English.

  • Let me start by asking you a few questions.

  • Do you cut your own hair? Do you repair your own car?

  • Do you fix your roof?

  • If you're like most people, you probably do not do those things by yourself;

  • you have someone else do those things for you. Right?

  • So in English, when you have someone else perform an action for you, we express that

  • in a different way, and that's what you're going to learn in this lesson. Okay? Let's

  • have a look at the board.

  • Okay, so let's say that you do something by yourself. Okay? Then you would say, for example:

  • "I paint the house every year." That's if you do it by yourself.

  • If you... In the past, we would say:

  • "I painted the house last year."

  • In the future, you would say:

  • "I will paint the house next year." Right?

  • That's when you do the action. That's the normal way in which

  • we construct an English sentence.

  • But what if you don't do it yourself? What if somebody else comes in and does it for

  • you? Okay? You hire a painter, and he or she does the work for you. Then, in English, we

  • have to express it in a different way. We have to express it like this.

  • In the present, it would be:

  • "I have the house painted every year."

  • So what's special, there? This:

  • "I have the house painted every year."

  • Last year or in the past:

  • "I had the house painted last year." Okay?

  • See the difference, there? And when we're talking about the future:

  • "I will have the house painted next year." Okay?

  • Good.

  • Now, I know that sounds like a mouthful. That means it sounds like a lot of words, and it

  • is a lot of words in the beginning until you understand how it's constructed, but just

  • try to see the difference between: "I paint the house." and "I have the house painted.",

  • between: "I painted the house." and "I had the house painted.",

  • between: "I will paint the house." and "I will have the house painted."

  • Okay? That's what you have to do when you

  • are talking about something which someone else does for you; a service which someone

  • else performs for you. Okay?

  • Let's look at a few more examples, and then you'll understand a little better. So let's

  • say, for example, I don't cut my own hair, and I guess you don't cut your own hair either.

  • So, how would you say that? Okay? If somebody else does it for you? You would say:

  • "I have my hair cut every month." for example.

  • In the past: "I had my hair cut." Sorry, it should

  • be "last month". Okay. And:

  • "I will have my hair cut next month." Okay?

  • So we have present, past, future. So what was special, there?

  • "I have my hair cut", "I had my hair cut",

  • "I will have my hair cut".

  • Okay? So that's the way we express it when a hairdresser or

  • someone else, or a barber, is going to cut your hair, and not you.

  • Okay, next. Now, here we're going to talk about John. John is a rich guy, and he's also

  • doing very well, he makes a lot of money, but he doesn't like to clean. So he doesn't

  • clean his own apartment. He calls a maid in to clean his apartment. So, when we're talking

  • about John, we say... We don't say: "John cleans his apartment",

  • because he doesn't do it himself; someone else does it for him. Right? So we say:

  • "John has his apartment cleaned every week."

  • Okay. I said he's rich. Okay, he has the money.

  • "John had his apartment cleaned last week."

  • Or:

  • "John will have his apartment cleaned next week."

  • Same construction:

  • "has his apartment cleaned", "had his apartment cleaned",

  • "will have his apartment cleaned".

  • Okay? Same concept in every single example.

  • Let's take one last example. So, let's say a hotel-right?-they have many floors, they

  • have to wash their windows regularly. But they don't do it themselves; they hire a company

  • to do that, a window-washing company. So we could say:

  • "The hotel has its windows washed every year." Right?

  • Last year, we're talking about the past:

  • "The hotel had its windows washed last year."

  • Here we go. And future:

  • "The hotel will have its windows washed next year."

  • Okay? All right.

  • So, you have just learned a really important advanced-level point in English grammar.

  • I hope you've caught it. I'm sure you'd like to do a little more practice on that, which

  • would be a very good idea. For that,

  • go to our website: www.engvid.com.

  • There you can do a quiz on this and really master it, because it's quite a big difference. Right?

  • We don't say: "I cut my hair." We say: "I have my hair cut."

  • And these kind of small changes will improve your English tremendously.

  • For more tips like that on improving your English

  • quickly and effectively,

  • subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can get regular videos. Okay?

  • Thanks for watching. Bye for now.

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid.

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