I get my car repaired. You get your hair cut.

I get my car repaired. You get your hair cut.

My car does not go. I don’t know what is wrong with it. The engine won’t start. The car will not move. What shall I do?

I will get the car repaired. That means– I will not repair the car myself. I will ask someone else to do it, and they will repair the car for me. Look at the way we can talk about this in English.

I will get my car repaired.

I will have my car repaired.

I will get the garage to repair my car.

I will have the garage repair my car.

Now here is something which we all need, but which we cannot do for ourselves– cutting our hair. ( What? You cut your own hair? How? Would you like to send me a photo so I can put it on the website?) So what do you do?

You get your hair cut.

You have your hair cut.

You get the hairdresser to cut your hair.

You have the hairdresser cut your hair.

Do you know what a milkman is? In England you can have your milk delivered to your home. Our milkman comes at about3 am. He leaves two bottles of milk and one bottle of orange juice outside our door. He drives a little electric van( we call it a” milk float” in English), so he makes hardly any noise. The milk bottles are made of glass, and when they are empty, we leave them outside the door for the milkman to collect. So we can say:

We get our milk delivered.

We have our milk delivered.

We get the milkman to deliver our milk.

We have the milkman deliver our milk.

Now, finally imagine that you are rich. No, not rich– very, very rich indeed. You do not have a luxury sports car. You have three luxury sports cars, and a yacht, and a private aeroplane, and a home in Monte Carlo where your friends are all very rich too. And you have servants– people to do things for you. Here are some of the things you get your servants to do:

You get your food cooked.

You have your finger nails polished.

You get your butler to pour your champagne.

You have your gardener mow the lawn.

If you like, think of other things which your servants can do for you. Use the expressions we have used in this podcast like- “ I get something done”, “ I have something done” etc– and put them on the Listen to English website as comments. Or perhaps you can get someone to put them on the website for you.