Causative Constructions (Mandar, Fazer, Deixar)

When you want to say in Portuguese that you make, let, or order someone else to do something, you reach for one of three verbs: mandar, fazer, and deixar. Together they form the causative family — a tight grammatical club with its own rules for infinitive complements, clitic placement, and choice of object case. Once you know the patterns, a huge amount of everyday speech opens up: deixa-me ver (let me see), fiz o miúdo chorar (I made the kid cry), mandei-o embora (I sent him off), não me deixes esperar (don't keep me waiting). This is one of the most frequent structures in conversational Portuguese.

The causative construction is also one of the cleanest illustrations of how different Portuguese's syntax is from English. English has one shape for "make" (I made him laugh), another for "let" (I let him go), and a third for "order" (I ordered him to go — with a to-infinitive). Portuguese treats all three with the same skeleton: verb + object + bare infinitive. There is no to, no para, no a — just a naked infinitive after the object. This page walks through the three causative verbs, shows where they overlap and where they don't, and explains the small number of extra complications (dative vs. accusative objects, clitic placement, the que-clause alternative) that you need to get right.

The basic causative skeleton

All three causative verbs share the same bare-bones template:

Subject + mandar / fazer / deixar + object + infinitive (+ further complements)

The object sits between the main verb and the infinitive, and the infinitive has no preposition in front of it. The object is semantically the subject of the infinitive — the one who performs the embedded action.

When the object is pronominal, it cliticises to the matrix causative verb, producing compact forms like mandei-o ir, fi-lo rir, deixa-me entrar. We'll look at those in detail below.

Mandar — "to order / send / have someone do"

Mandar expresses an instruction or command — the agent tells someone else to perform an action. The shade of meaning ranges from a literal military order (mandou-o atirar — he ordered him to shoot) to a casual suggestion (manda-o vir cá — tell him to come here) to a practical sending (mandei-a à farmácia — I sent her to the pharmacy).

Mandar + object + infinitive

Mandar + que + subjunctive (more formal)

Mandar also allows a que-clause alternative with the subjunctive. This is more formal, more explicit about who the embedded subject is, and typically appears in writing, official registers, or situations where the speaker wants to add clarity or emphasis.

The two patterns are not perfectly synonymous. The infinitive version (mandei-o sair) tends to describe a single event with a named addressee; the que-clause version (mandei que ele saísse) is more common when the order is general, has multiple addressees, or needs tense flexibility (the subjunctive can be past, past perfect, etc., in a way the bare infinitive can't match as precisely).

Mandar + adverb or prepositional phrase (no infinitive)

Mandar can also take a location or direction without any infinitive:

This is just mandar used as a verb of directed motion, not the full causative construction, but it is extremely common in conversation.

Fazer — "to make someone do"

Fazer + infinitive means to cause someone to do something — the emphasis is on the causation, not on the act of instructing. Fiz o João rir does not mean "I told João to laugh"; it means "my action caused João to laugh." The agent of the embedded action isn't receiving an order — they're being affected by something.

Causative fazer is the go-to construction for describing emotional reactions, physical reactions, and mechanical consequences.

Fazer + que + subjunctive

Like mandar, fazer has a que-clause alternative, but it is less common and has a slightly different nuance. Fazer com que (note the obligatory com) is actually the more frequent phrasing in careful speech and writing:

Fazer com que is the standard way to express causation in writing when the embedded subject is a full clause rather than a simple noun. The com is obligatory — faz que without com is marginal.

Deixar — "to let / allow"

Deixar is the permissive causative. It expresses that the agent allows or does not prevent someone from doing something. It is extraordinarily common in daily speech because it takes polite imperatives (deixa-me ver, deixe-me ajudar) and negotiating phrases (deixa lá, não deixes de).

Deixar de + infinitive (different construction)

There is a second, unrelated deixar construction: deixar de + infinitive, meaning to stop doing something or to fail to do something. Despite the surface similarity, this is not a causative and doesn't belong on this page — except as a warning about the preposition.

The causative deixar takes a bare infinitive; deixar de takes a preposition. The two constructions almost never overlap — context makes the difference clear — but beginners sometimes add de where it doesn't belong.

Clitic placement with causatives

Portuguese's general rules for clitic pronoun placement apply exactly as usual with causative verbs: enclisis (pronoun after the verb, joined by a hyphen) is the default, and proclisis (pronoun before the verb) kicks in whenever a proclitic trigger is present (negation, certain adverbs, certain subordinators, wh-words). The one thing to remember is that with causatives, the clitic attaches to the causative verb (mandar, fazer, deixar), not to the infinitive.

Enclitic (default)

Note the special spelling of fazer forms: fiz + o → fi-lo (with loss of the final z and addition of the l-); faz + o → fá-lo; fez + a → fê-la. This is a general rule that applies to any verb ending in r, s, or z combined with o/a/os/as.

Proclitic (under triggers)

When a proclitic trigger appears, the clitic jumps to the front of the causative verb:

Mesoclisis (future and conditional)

With the synthetic future and conditional, mesoclitic placement is possible in formal European Portuguese, although in modern speech it is often avoided in favour of a periphrastic alternative.

The double-object problem: dative or accusative?

When the infinitive is transitive and already has its own direct object, a question arises: does the causative's own object take accusative case (o, a, os, as) or dative case (lhe, lhes)?

Intransitive infinitive → accusative

When the infinitive is intransitive, there is no competing accusative inside the embedded clause, and the causative's object simply takes accusative.

Transitive infinitive → European Portuguese prefers accusative

When the infinitive is transitive, traditional grammar recommends dative for the causative's object (mandei-lhe escrever uma carta — I had him write a letter). This is the analytic pattern inherited from Latin and still taught in older grammars.

However, modern European Portuguese strongly prefers accusative even with transitive infinitives:

The dative pattern (mandei-lhe fazer a cama) is still grammatical and is preferred in formal writing, but in speech and in most modern prose, accusative is the unmarked choice. If you use accusative consistently, you will sound natural in contemporary European Portuguese.

Full noun objects — no case problem

When the object is a full noun phrase rather than a clitic, the case distinction disappears (noun phrases aren't marked for case):

Politeness — the que + subjunctive alternative

All three causatives have a que + subjunctive alternative, but they differ in how natural and how common that alternative is.

Mandar que + subjunctive is standard and extremely productive in formal contexts:

Fazer com que + subjunctive is the everyday causation-describing form in writing:

Deixar que + subjunctive is less common but possible:

In all three cases, the que-clause version is more polite, more formal, and more explicit about the subject. The bare-infinitive version is more compact, more colloquial, and more punchy. When you're giving an instruction or reporting a reaction in casual speech, go with the bare infinitive. When you're writing a report or narrating formally, the que-clause reads better.

Word order tweaks

The object can precede or follow the verb string in some nuanced orderings:

These are natural in speech and reflect the usual topicalisation patterns of Portuguese.

Common Mistakes

Key takeaways

• Mandar expresses an order or instruction; fazer expresses causation; deixar expresses permission.
• All three follow the same skeleton: subject + verb + object + bare infinitive. No a, no para, no de.
• A pronominal object cliticises to the causative verb, not to the infinitive: deixa-me ver, fi-lo rir, mandei-o esperar.
• Clitic placement follows standard European rules: enclitic by default, proclitic under triggers (negation, adverbs, wh-words, certain subordinators).
• With an intransitive infinitive, the object is accusative. With a transitive infinitive, modern European Portuguese still prefers accusative (the older dative-with-transitive-infinitive pattern survives in formal writing but is minority usage).
• The que-clause alternatives (mandar que
  • subj., fazer com que
    • subj., deixar que
      • subj.) are more formal and more explicit about the embedded subject.
• Don't confuse causative deixar with deixar de
  • infinitive (to stop / to fail to).