Spanish Causative Verbs

Spanish has a neat, compact way of talking about getting other people to act. Where English stacks verbs - "I made him wait", "they let me in", "I had the car fixed" - Spanish glues a small set of causative verbs straight onto an infinitive, with nothing in between. No que, no preposition. Me hizo esperar: he made me wait. Me dejaron entrar: they let me in. Learn the handful of verbs, then master the one genuinely fiddly part - what happens to the pronouns.

The causative verbs at a glance

All six share the same skeleton: conjugated causative verb + infinitive. The person affected turns up as a pronoun, and it is that pronoun that needs care.

hacer + infinitive: make or have someone do something

Hacer is the workhorse. It covers both English "make" (force) and "have" (arrange):

• Me hizo esperar. (He made me wait.)
• La hicimos reír. (We made her laugh.)
• El profesor nos hizo repetir el ejercicio. (The teacher made us redo the exercise.)

It also handles causes that are not people at all:

• El sol hace crecer las plantas. (The sun makes the plants grow.)
• Esa canción me hace llorar. (That song makes me cry.)

The pronoun switch: direct vs indirect object

Here is the part that trips everyone up. Who you make act can be a direct object or an indirect object, and which one depends on whether the infinitive has its own object.

No object on the infinitive - the person is a direct object (lo, la, los, las):

• Lo hice trabajar. (I made him work.) - trabajar has no object.
• La hice esperar. (I made her wait.)

The infinitive has its own object - the person is bumped to an indirect object (le, les):

• Le hice arreglar el coche. (I had him fix the car.) - arreglar already carries el coche, so the person becomes le.
• Les hice firmar el contrato. (I had them sign the contract.)

Word for word, that second pattern is "I made-to-him fix the car". It feels strange in English, but it is perfectly regular: two objects cannot both be direct, so the person yields and goes indirect. The rule in one line: bare infinitive plus person = lo/la; infinitive-with-object plus person = le/les.

dejar + infinitive: let and allow

Dejar is the everyday word for letting someone do something:

• Me dejaron entrar. (They let me in.)
• No me deja hablar. (He won't let me speak.)
• Déjame ver. (Let me see.)

It also takes que + subjunctive with no change in meaning: deja que lo haga (let him do it). Both are correct; the infinitive is tighter and more common when the person is a simple pronoun.

mandar and ordenar: order someone to do something

Mandar and the more formal ordenar cover commanding:

• El médico me mandó descansar. (The doctor ordered me to rest.)
• El sargento les mandó formar. (The sergeant ordered them to fall in.)
• El juez ordenó cerrar el local. (The judge ordered the premises closed.)

Mandar is the natural spoken choice; ordenar leans formal and legal.

permitir and prohibir: allow and forbid

These two are the formal register partners of dejar. They appear on signs, in rules and in officialese, and they take either an infinitive or que + subjunctive:

• No se permite fumar. (Smoking is not allowed.)
• Me permitieron salir antes. (They let me leave early.)
• Le prohibieron conducir un año. (They banned him from driving for a year.)
• Prohibido pisar el cesped. (Keep off the grass.)

Notice the fixed sign form prohibido + infinitive - a very common shorthand for a rule.

hacer que + subjunctive: the longer alternative

Every hacer + infinitive has a twin built with hacer que + subjunctive, useful when the clause is long or you want a full spelled-out subject:

• Me hizo repetirlo. = Hizo que lo repitiera. (He made me repeat it.)
• Los hice salir. = Hice que salieran. (I made them leave.)

The infinitive version is shorter and dominates in speech; the que version earns its keep in writing and with heavier clauses.

Pronoun placement

The little object pronouns attach to the end of the infinitive or sit before the conjugated causative verb - your choice, same meaning:

• Me lo hizo repetir. = Hizo repetírmelo. (He made me repeat it.)
• No me dejan verlo. = No me lo dejan ver. (They won't let me see it.)

Both are natural. When they climb onto the infinitive they stack in the usual order and pick up a written accent to keep the stress (repetírmelo).

hacerse + infinitive: having something done to yourself

Finally, the reflexive hacerse + infinitive reports a service done to you by someone unnamed:

• Me hice cortar el pelo. (I had my hair cut.)
• Me hice hacer un traje. (I had a suit made.)
• Se hizo operar de la rodilla. (She had her knee operated on.)

The reflexive me / se shows the action landed on you, even though the hairdresser or surgeon actually did it. It is the tidy way to say "I had X done" without dragging in who did it.

Common mistakes English speakers make

Inserting a que or a preposition. The infinitive attaches directly: me hizo esperar, never "me hizo a esperar" or "me hizo que esperar". Only the deliberate hacer que version takes que, and then it needs the subjunctive.

Keeping the person as a direct object when the infinitive has one. It is le hice arreglar el coche, not "lo hice arreglar el coche". Once the infinitive carries its own object, the person goes indirect.

Using the gerund for "let me speak". Spanish uses the infinitive: no me deja hablar, never "no me deja hablando".

Pick the right verb, drop the infinitive on straight after, and watch whether the infinitive already has an object before you choose lo or le. That is the whole game.

See also

• Object pronouns and pronoun order - the me/te/le/lo system these causatives lean on, and how the pronouns stack.
• The subjunctive after verbs of influence - the que + subjunctive route that hacer, dejar, mandar, permitir and prohibir all also allow.
• Reflexive verbs - the se behind hacerse cortar el pelo.
• The Spanish grammar cheatsheet collects the causative pattern and its verb list on one card.