Faire Causatif in French: faire + Infinitive with Examples

Put an infinitive after faire and it stops meaning do. It means cause to happen: someone else does the work, or you make someone do it. Here is the whole construction on one screen.

One word separates doing it from having it done:

• Je répare la voiture. - I repair the car. (my hands)
• Je fais réparer la voiture. - I'm having the car repaired. (someone else's hands)

Making someone do it, having it done

English needs have, get and make for this. French uses one pattern, and the difference is only whether the person doing the action is named.

With nobody named, it means have it done. With a named doer, it means make or get someone to do it. French is happy to leave the doer out, which is why the pattern is so common.

A few pairs are worth learning as set phrases:

• Fais voir ! - Show me!
• Je vous ferai savoir la date. - I will let you know the date.

Nothing comes between faire and the infinitive

Faire and its infinitive are one block. A noun object goes after the whole block, never inside it, although English puts it in the middle.

A short adverb can slip in, as with any verb, and so can tout and rien:

• Je fais souvent réparer ma voiture. - I often have my car repaired.
• Il fait tout refaire. - He has everything redone.
• Il ne fait rien réparer. - He doesn't have anything repaired.

faire or rendre: make + verb or make + adjective

English make covers two French verbs. Look at the word after it: a verb takes faire, an adjective takes rendre.

Ça me fait triste is the error, and an audible one. A noun goes with faire: Ça me fait peur. - That frightens me. Ça me fait plaisir. - That pleases me.

Where the pronouns go

Because nothing may break the block, an object pronoun cannot sit in front of the infinitive it belongs to. It goes in front of faire.

Not je fais la réparer. In a compound tense the pronoun goes in front of the auxiliary, as with any verb.

The one exception is the usual one: after a positive command, the pronoun follows faire.

• Fais-le entrer ! - Show him in!
• Faites-moi rire ! - Make me laugh!

One object or two: le or lui

Count the objects. When the infinitive has no object of its own, the person is the direct object: le, la, les.

• Je le fais travailler. - I make him work.
• Je les fais attendre. - I keep them waiting.

When the infinitive has its own object, that object takes the direct slot, and the person becomes indirect: lui, leur. With a noun, the person takes à.

Where à would be unclear, the doer can come in with par instead: Je fais réparer la voiture par le voisin. - I'm having the car repaired by the neighbour.

fait never agrees

With avoir, a past participle normally agrees with a direct object placed before it. Fait followed by an infinitive never does: no e, no s.

Faire and the infinitive work as one verb, so the word in front is never the object of fait alone, and the agreement is cancelled. This rule has no exceptions.

se faire + infinitive: done to you, or for you

With se, the subject is the person the action happens to. Avoiding the passive uses it for bad luck, but it is just as often something you arranged. The verb tells you which.

Se faire takes être in the passé composé, like every reflexive, and fait still does not agree: elle s'est fait, never faite.

Even fait faire is correct: Elle s'est fait faire une robe. - She had a dress made.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say three things you have done for you: je fais laver, je fais réparer, je fais couper.
2. Turn each into a pronoun: je la fais réparer.
3. Read laisser, voir and entendre + infinitive, which share this word order and break the agreement rule differently.