To say someone made, had, or let another person do something — "I had them come in," "I let the kids play," "I made him laugh" — Brazilian Portuguese uses the causative verbs mandar (have/order), deixar (let/allow), and fazer (make/cause), followed by the doer and an infinitive. That infinitive can be a personal infinitive, inflected for the doer: Mandei eles entrarem. This page covers the construction and its very common colloquial twin, the bare (uninflected) infinitive: Mandei eles entrar.
English has three different verbs here — make, have, let — and so does Portuguese, but they line up only loosely. Sorting out which Portuguese verb expresses which kind of causation is half the battle; the other half is the inflection choice.
The three causative verbs
| Verb | Core meaning | English equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| mandar | order / have someone do | have, make, tell (to) |
| deixar | let / allow | let, allow |
| fazer | make / cause | make, cause |
The structure is the same for all three: causative verb + doer + infinitive, with no que and no preposition. The doer sits between the causative and the infinitive.
Mandei eles entrarem porque estava frio lá fora.
I had them come in because it was cold outside.
Deixei eles brincarem mais um pouco antes do jantar.
I let them play a bit longer before dinner.
O comediante fez todo mundo rir até chorar.
The comedian made everyone laugh until they cried.
In the first two, the doer is plural (eles), so the personal infinitive inflects: entrarem, brincarem. In the third, todo mundo (everyone) is grammatically singular, so the infinitive stays rir with no ending.
The personal infinitive vs. the bare infinitive
Here is the central fact of this page: both the inflected and the uninflected infinitive are grammatical and widely used after causatives. The choice is one of register, not correctness.
Mandei eles entrarem.
I had them come in. (personal infinitive — more careful)
Mandei eles entrar.
I had them come in. (bare infinitive — more colloquial)
Both are heard constantly in Brazil. The inflected version (entrarem) sounds slightly more careful and is favored in writing; the bare version (entrar) is extremely common in everyday speech and sounds completely natural. There is no difference in meaning.
Deixa as crianças brincarem.
Let the children play. (inflected)
Deixa as crianças brincar.
Let the children play. (bare — very common in speech)
Why the bare infinitive is so common here
Causative constructions form a tight unit: the causative verb and the embedded infinitive feel almost like a single complex predicate ("make-laugh," "let-play"). Because the doer is right there in the middle, the listener already knows who is acting, so the -em ending on the infinitive becomes informationally redundant. Brazilian Portuguese, which leans toward economy in speech, happily drops it. This is the same impulse that drops the inflection in casual perception-verb sentences (vi as crianças brincar). The fuller, inflected form survives in writing and careful speech precisely because formal registers prefer explicit marking.
This is genuinely different from prepositional or subject-clause uses of the personal infinitive (É melhor nós sairmos), where dropping the inflection would leave the subject unmarked and the sentence vague. In causatives, the doer is never omitted, so nothing is lost by going bare.
Pronoun forms of the doer
In careful written Portuguese, the doer of a causative is technically an object and "should" appear as an object pronoun (os, as) — Mandei-os entrar. But in real Brazilian Portuguese, the subject pronoun (eles, elas) is overwhelmingly the norm, especially in speech.
Deixei eles saírem mais cedo hoje.
I let them leave earlier today. (everyday BR — subject pronoun eles)
Mandou-os esperar na recepção.
He had them wait at reception. (formal/written — object pronoun -os, bare infinitive)
Fazer: cause vs. order
Fazer expresses making someone do something through influence or cause — it does not imply you gave an order. It is the closest match to English "make."
A notícia fez todos eles chorarem.
The news made all of them cry.
O barulho fez os bebês acordarem.
The noise made the babies wake up.
Contrast with mandar, which implies authority — you told someone to do something:
O chefe mandou os funcionários ficarem até mais tarde.
The boss had the employees stay later.
Choosing fazer when you mean an order, or mandar when you mean a cause, produces odd sentences — a comedian faz people laugh (he doesn't order them to), while a boss manda employees stay (it's an instruction).
Common Mistakes
❌ Mandei que eles entrarem.
Incorrect — with the infinitive construction there's no que; with que you'd need the subjunctive (entrassem).
✅ Mandei eles entrarem.
I had them come in. (infinitive, no que)
✅ Mandei que eles entrassem.
I ordered that they come in. (que + subjunctive, more formal)
This is the most common error: blending the two valid structures. Either mandar + doer + infinitive, or mandar que + subjunctive — never mandar que + infinitive.
❌ Deixei para eles brincarem.
Incorrect — deixar takes the doer directly, with no para.
✅ Deixei eles brincarem.
I let them play.
English speakers add a preposition by analogy with "let them" / "allow them to," but deixar needs none. (Compare pedir, which DOES take para: pedi para eles saírem.)
❌ A notícia fez eles chorar muito tristes.
Awkward — fazer + plural doer normally inflects in careful BR: fez eles chorarem (or the bare fez eles chorar in casual speech), and the adjective phrasing is off.
✅ A notícia fez todos eles chorarem.
The news made all of them cry.
❌ O chefe fez os funcionários ficarem até tarde.
Wrong verb choice — an order uses mandar, not fazer (fazer would imply he caused it indirectly).
✅ O chefe mandou os funcionários ficarem até tarde.
The boss had the employees stay late.
❌ Deixa as crianças brincandem.
Incorrect — causatives take an infinitive, not a gerund, and the gerund never inflects anyway.
✅ Deixa as crianças brincarem.
Let the children play.
Key Takeaways
- Mandar (order/have), deixar (let), and fazer (make/cause) take the structure: causative + doer + infinitive, with no que and no preposition.
- The infinitive may be inflected (entrarem) or bare (entrar) — both are correct; inflected is more careful, bare is more colloquial.
- The doer sits between the causative and the infinitive; in speech use subject pronouns (eles), reserving clitics (-os) for formal writing.
- Choose mandar for orders, fazer for cause/influence, deixar for permission.
- Don't combine que with the infinitive — that's the number-one error.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- The Personal Infinitive: OverviewB1 — Portuguese's signature feature — an infinitive that carries person and number endings, letting infinitive clauses take their own subject.
- Causative Constructions (Fazer / Mandar)B2 — How Brazilian Portuguese expresses making, having, ordering, and letting someone do something — with fazer, mandar, and deixar plus an infinitive, and the bare-vs-personal infinitive choice that follows them.
- Personal Infinitive with Perception Verbs (ver, ouvir, sentir)B2 — Using the personal infinitive after verbs of perception, and how it contrasts with the gerund in expressing what you saw, heard, or felt.
- Causative Constructions (Make/Have/Let)B2 — How Brazilian Portuguese builds causatives with fazer, mandar, and deixar — bare infinitive, personal infinitive, and 'que' + subjunctive — plus the everyday 'deixa eu ver' and clitic placement.
- Personal Infinitive Replacing Subjunctive ClausesB2 — How Brazilian Portuguese uses the personal infinitive as a more concise, modern-sounding alternative to que + subjunctive clauses.
- Personal Infinitive after PrepositionsB1 — How and when to inflect the infinitive after prepositions like para, sem, antes de, and em vez de when the clause has its own subject.