Bronze statue of William Penn at the top of the Philadelphia City Hall in Pennsulvania

Activities: “English causative verbs: What are they and how to use them?”

By: Erin Kuester
Associated Articles

These activities are part of our English Grammar series. The skills we are practicing here are covered in our article:

Activity 1: Fill in the blanks

Use the verbs below to fill in the blanks:

stay

get

read

work

clean

write

be

wear

help

lend

Remember, some causative verbs come before the infinitive with to while others come before the bare infinitive! To help you out, we’ve put the causative verbs in bold.

  • Lisa had her friendsher move to her new apartment.

  • Sorry, a delay on the bus caused me late!

  • The school requires all new students an ID card.

  • Derek got Carlhim some money.

  • My parents let meout until 2 a.m. on the weekend.

  • I had my friend the book I wrote and give me feedback.

  • The teacher forced us together

  • The babysitter made the kids up the mess.

  • Our boss permits us jeans on Fridays.

  • Sarah helped her coworker the report that the boss wanted.

Activity 2: Describe the pictures

Check out each picture below. How can you describe the situation in each image using a causative verb? Try to write a sentence for each picture describing what’s happening using causative verbs. And remember that you can be creative and imagine a scenario!

Here are some common causative verbs that you might want to use:

let

make

require

permit

allow

force

cause

have

get

help

For example:

He made her laugh.

A photo of two people chatting at a cafe table, a white man with a bun and an East Asian woman with blonde highlights and glasses. The woman is laughing at something the man said and is holding a coffee mug. The man is talking with his laptop open

Your turn!

  • A photo of a construction worker, wearing a yellow hard hat, an orange visibility vest, and a black face mask. In the background, we can see several other people wearing the same outfit.

    The government requires workers to wear a mask.

  • A photo of a group of five people gathered around a white conference table having a brainstorming session. At the front of the room a woman is standing before a wall where multi-colored sticky notes are arranged into logical groups. The other four are seated at the table where some laptops, notepads, and writing implements are arranged.

    The group let her choose the next topic.

  • A photo of a boy and girl in a pine forest. The boy is sitting on the ground and the girl is grabbing his hand to pull him to his feet

    She helped her brother get up after he fell.

  • A photo of a line of people walking up a staircase. We are looking at their backs, and the staircase is curving around the outer wall of some sort of tower. The wall is white and decorated with a Greek key pattern.

    Everyone was forced to wait in line.

  • A young teacher with curly hair sits on a yellow beanbag and reads a book to a classroom of young children.

    The teacher has the children sit on the floor during story time.

  • A photo of bumper-to-bumper traffic on a multi-lane highway. People are heading towards the Cross-Harbour Tunnel and an urban skyline can be seen in the background in font of some mountains.

    Bad traffic caused everyone to be late.

  • Someone is giving a presentation in a small room, with abut 15 people in the audience. It looks like a college seminar room. They are seated at small chairs with attached desks, some are taking notes.

    The teacher got everyone to listen to his lecture.

  • A photo of a red umbrella in the rain. We can see a woman's hand holding the umbrella but the person holding it is out of frame.

    The rain forced me to use my umbrella.

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