English packs three different ideas into the bare causative pattern make/let/have someone do something: make (I caused it), let (I permitted it), and have/get (I arranged for it). Norwegian splits these across two verbs — få and la — and the single most important difference is whether the little marker til å appears before the infinitive or not. Get that distinction wrong and a Norwegian will still understand you, but you will sound like you are translating word for word from English. This page lays out the three patterns and the logic that keeps them apart.
Pattern 1: få noen til å + infinitive — "make / get someone to do"
To say that you caused another person to act, use få + the person + til å + infinitive. Literally it is "get someone to do," and that English gloss is a useful anchor: the til å is doing exactly the work of English to.
Hun fikk meg til å le, selv om jeg var sur.
She made me laugh, even though I was annoyed.
Hvordan fikk du barna til å sovne så fort?
How did you get the kids to fall asleep so fast?
Ingenting kunne få ham til å ombestemme seg.
Nothing could make him change his mind.
The verb få is irregular: present får, preterite fikk, supine fått. So the past is fikk … til å, and the perfect is har fått … til å.
Læreren har fått hele klassen til å elske matte.
The teacher has got the whole class to love maths.
Notice that English make here corresponds to få … til å, never to a bare å gjøre. This is the heart of the trap: English make someone do has no to (you say "she made me laugh," not "she made me to laugh"), but Norwegian must have til å.
Force vs. cause: tvinge til å
When the causing is against the person's will — force rather than just get — the verb is tvinge (force), but the frame is identical: tvinge noen til å + infinitive. The til å carries over.
De ble tvunget til å selge huset.
They were forced to sell the house.
Ingen kan tvinge deg til å skrive under.
No one can force you to sign.
Pattern 2: la noen + bare infinitive — "let / have someone do"
To say you permit or let someone act, use la + the person + the bare infinitive — no å, no til å. This is the mirror image of pattern 1, and it is where English speakers stumble most, because both make and let feel like the same kind of verb in English.
The verb la is irregular and you must memorise its forms: infinitive la, present lar, preterite lot, supine latt.
La meg hjelpe deg med kofferten.
Let me help you with the suitcase.
Foreldrene lot barna leke ute til det ble mørkt.
The parents let the children play outside until it got dark.
Jeg lot ham vente i ti minutter — med vilje.
I let him wait for ten minutes — on purpose.
Two things to note. First, the infinitive after la is bare: la meg se (let me see), not la meg å se. Second, la covers both English let (permit) and the "have/leave someone doing" sense — jeg lot ham vente is "I let/had him wait."
La oss gå nå, før det begynner å regne.
Let's go now, before it starts to rain.
That last example — la oss + bare infinitive — is the everyday Norwegian let's, and it shows the bare-infinitive rule in its most common form.
Pattern 3: få + object + past participle — "have / get something done"
The third causative is about a result on a thing, not an action by a person: you arrange for something to be done, and someone else does it. English says "get the car washed" or "have the roof repaired." Norwegian uses få + the object + the past participle (the supine, the har-form).
Jeg må få klippet håret før bryllupet.
I have to get my hair cut before the wedding.
Vi fikk reparert taket akkurat i tide.
We got the roof repaired just in time.
Har du fått vasket bilen ennå?
Have you got the car washed yet?
Here få does not take til å and does not take a person — it takes a thing plus a participle. The subject is the beneficiary (you organised it; the action benefits you), and who actually did the washing or cutting is left unsaid. This is the construction English renders with get/have something done.
Word order: participle can come before or after the object
Both orders occur: få *klippet håret and få håret *klippet. The participle-first order (få klippet håret) is the more idiomatic in speech.
Vi fikk huset malt utvendig i fjor sommer.
We had the house painted on the outside last summer.
Don't confuse this with få … til å
The contrast between pattern 1 and pattern 3 is sharp once you see it:
- få noen til å
- infinitive → you made a person act (fikk ham til å vaske bilen = got him to wash the car).
- få noe
- participle → you got a thing done, agent unnamed (fikk vasket bilen = got the car washed).
Jeg fikk broren min til å male gjerdet.
I got my brother to paint the fence (he did it).
Jeg fikk malt gjerdet i helga.
I got the fence painted over the weekend (someone did; result matters).
How English make / let / have maps to Norwegian
| English | Meaning | Norwegian | Marker |
|---|---|---|---|
| make / get someone to do | cause a person to act | få noen til å + inf. | til å |
| force someone to do | cause against their will | tvinge noen til å + inf. | til å |
| let / have someone do | permit / allow a person | la noen + bare inf. | (none) |
| have / get something done | arrange a result on a thing | få noe + participle | (none) |
Read down the "marker" column and the logic appears: person-as-causer + cause takes til å; permission (la) and result-on-a-thing (få + participle) take no marker. English gives you no such signal — make, let, and have all sit bare before the verb — so this is something you must build as a new habit.
Common Mistakes
These errors all come from mapping English make/let/have one-to-one and from forgetting that la and få … til å treat the infinitive differently.
❌ La meg til å se billetten din.
Incorrect — la takes a bare infinitive, never til å.
✅ La meg se billetten din.
Let me see your ticket.
❌ Hun fikk meg le.
Incorrect — få in the causative needs til å before the infinitive.
✅ Hun fikk meg til å le.
She made me laugh.
❌ Jeg vil ha bilen vasket på lørdag.
Stilted calque of English 'have the car washed'; Norwegian uses få for this.
✅ Jeg vil få vasket bilen på lørdag.
I want to get the car washed on Saturday.
❌ Foreldrene lot barna til å spille fotball.
Incorrect — la never takes til å; drop it entirely.
✅ Foreldrene lot barna spille fotball.
The parents let the children play football.
❌ La oss å gå.
Incorrect — after la the infinitive is bare, so no å.
✅ La oss gå.
Let's go.
Key Takeaways
- få noen til å
- infinitive = "make/get someone to do" — the til å is obligatory and matches English to.
- tvinge noen til å = "force someone to do" — same til å frame, stronger verb.
- la noen
- bare infinitive = "let/have someone do" — no å, no til å. Forms: la, lar, lot, latt. La oss gå = "let's go."
- få noe
- past participle = "have/get something done" — a result on a thing, agent unnamed: få klippet håret.
- The whole distinction lives in til å: causing a person → til å; permitting (la) or getting a thing done (få
- participle) → no marker.
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- få: Get, Be Allowed, ManageB1 — The multifunctional få — main verb 'get/receive', the permission/prohibition modal (får ikke = 'is NOT allowed to'), 'manage to', and the resultative få + supine ('get something done').
- Uses of the InfinitiveB1 — The syntactic jobs of the Norwegian infinitive beyond modals — as subject (å lære norsk er gøy), object (jeg liker å lese), after prepositions (uten å si noe), in purpose clauses (for å vinne), after adjectives (lett å si), and the perfect infinitive (etter å ha spist) — anchored by the key fact that Norwegian has no -ing gerund.
- The bli-PassiveB1 — How to form the periphrastic bli + past participle passive (ble åpnet, blir valgt, har blitt bygd) and why it — not the s-passive — is the default for specific events.
- Why There Is No -ing FormA2 — Norwegian has no English-style -ing form: the simple present covers 'am reading', the infinitive covers the gerund-noun, and holde på å / drive og expresses an action in progress.
- Causative and Permissive Constructions in DepthC1 — The full få/la system — få noen til å (make/get sb to), la noen + bare infinitive (let sb do), tvinge/be/overtale noen til å (force/ask/persuade), and the resultative få + object + past participle (få reparert bilen = get the car fixed). Why English make/let/have/get maps onto four different Norwegian frames, and the til-å vs bare-infinitive split that decides which.