When you want to say "X makes Y do Z" — I made him study, she let me in, the boss had us stay late — Spanish lets you choose between a finite construction with the subjunctive (hice que estudiara, dejó que entrara, mandó que nos quedáramos) and a much more compact infinitive construction (le hice estudiar, me dejó entrar, nos mandó quedarnos). The infinitive construction is what linguists call the faire-causative, after the French construction that has the same shape. It is everywhere in spoken and written Spanish, and English has nothing quite like it.
This page covers the three core causative verbs — hacer, dejar, and mandar — with the infinitive complement. It explains the syntax (where the pronouns go, what case the causee takes, when the personal a shows up), the semantic difference between forcing, permitting, and ordering, and the systematic ambiguity that the construction creates.
The three core verbs
| Verb | Meaning | Force on the causee |
|---|---|---|
| hacer + inf | make X do Z, cause X to do Z | Strong: no choice implied |
| mandar + inf | order X to do Z, have X do Z | Authority-based: the causer has the right |
| dejar + inf | let X do Z, allow X to do Z | Negative: removing an obstacle |
Other verbs of influence (pedir, recomendar, exigir, prohibir) cluster with these semantically but take a que-clause with subjunctive instead of an infinitive. They are covered on the verbs-of-influence page; this page focuses on the three that take a bare infinitive.
Basic syntax: subject — causative verb — causee — infinitive
The skeleton is:
Causer + hacer/dejar/mandar + (a + causee) + infinitive + (object of the infinitive)
The causee — the person who actually performs the embedded action — can appear as a dative clitic (le, les), as a stressed prepositional phrase with a (a Marta), or both at once for clarity.
El profesor hizo callar a los alumnos.
The teacher made the students be quiet.
Le hice repetir la frase tres veces.
I made her repeat the sentence three times.
Mis padres no me dejan salir entre semana.
My parents don't let me go out on weekdays.
El jefe nos mandó quedarnos hasta las nueve.
The boss had us stay until nine.
When the embedded infinitive is intransitive, the causee is the only argument that needs case — and the dative-marking pattern is the standard one in peninsular Spanish.
La canción me hace llorar cada vez que la oigo.
The song makes me cry every time I hear it.
The case of the causee: le, lo, or both?
The peninsular norm is the dative pattern with hacer and mandar, regardless of whether the embedded verb is transitive or intransitive: le hice estudiar (I made him study), le hice estudiar la lección (I made him study the lesson), le mandé venir (I had him come). The dative pronoun le refers to the causee.
Le mandé venir a la oficina a primera hora.
I had him come to the office first thing in the morning.
Les hicimos comer las verduras antes del postre.
We made them eat the vegetables before dessert.
This dative-marking is one of the constructions that fuels peninsular leísmo: even speakers who otherwise use lo/la for human direct objects tend to use le for the causee in a causative construction. The Real Academia accepts le here as standard.
With dejar, the pattern depends on the embedded verb. If the embedded verb is intransitive, the causee is typically marked with lo/la (accusative): lo dejé entrar (I let him in). If the embedded verb is transitive, dative le is normal: le dejé conducir mi coche (I let him drive my car). In practice, peninsular speakers often use le in both cases.
No la dejaron pasar porque no llevaba el pasaporte.
They didn't let her through because she didn't have her passport.
Le dejé usar mi ordenador toda la tarde.
I let him use my computer all afternoon.
Clitic climbing: where the pronouns go
Object pronouns can — and almost always do — climb up onto the causative verb rather than attach to the infinitive. Both positions are grammatical, but the climbed position is the unmarked spoken default.
Me lo hizo repetir tres veces. (preferred)
She made me repeat it three times.
Hizo repetírmelo tres veces. (grammatical but less natural)
Same meaning, but the clitics stay on the infinitive.
When there are two clitics — one for the causee, one for the object of the infinitive — they cluster together on the causative verb in the order indirect-then-direct:
Se lo hice escribir a mano.
I made him write it by hand. (se = causee, lo = the thing written)
The le → se rule applies here as elsewhere: le lo surfaces as se lo.
Hacer + infinitive: from causation to triggering
Hacer + infinitive can express anything from direct human coercion to abstract triggering. The English translation often has to flex.
Hizo trabajar a los empleados hasta medianoche.
He made the employees work until midnight. (direct coercion)
El comentario me hizo pensar en mi padre.
The comment made me think about my father. (mental trigger)
El sol hace florecer los almendros en febrero.
The sun makes the almond trees bloom in February. (natural causation)
Esa película me hizo llorar como un crío.
That film made me cry like a baby.
A useful peninsular idiom: hacerse + infinitive reflexive, which means "to have something done to oneself."
Se hizo cortar el pelo en una peluquería del centro.
She got her hair cut at a salon downtown.
Me voy a hacer arreglar el coche antes del viaje.
I'm going to have the car fixed before the trip.
This hacerse + infinitive construction is the closest peninsular equivalent to English have something done / get something done.
Dejar + infinitive: permission and obstacle removal
Dejar + infinitive is the verb of letting, allowing, permitting. It implies that the causer had the power to prevent the action but chose not to.
¿Me dejas pasar, por favor? Tengo prisa.
Will you let me through, please? I'm in a hurry.
Mi padre nunca me dejó probar el alcohol en casa.
My father never let me try alcohol at home.
Déjame pensar un momento.
Let me think for a moment.
No te dejaron hablar en la reunión, ¿verdad?
They didn't let you speak at the meeting, did they?
There is also a use of dejar without a personal causee — dejar + infinitive can mean "stop doing" (dejar de + inf) or "leave something to be done": careful not to confuse dejar de + inf (stop X-ing) with dejar + inf (let X happen).
Mandar + infinitive: ordering with authority
Mandar + infinitive presupposes that the causer has authority over the causee. It is the natural verb for bosses, parents, military officers, doctors — anyone whose order is expected to be obeyed.
El médico me mandó hacerme un análisis de sangre.
The doctor ordered me to get a blood test.
Mi madre me mandó comprar pan al volver del cole.
My mother had me buy bread on the way back from school.
El sargento mandó formar a la tropa en el patio.
The sergeant had the troops fall in in the courtyard.
Mandar + infinitive without a causee can mean "have something done by someone unspecified" — similar to the English get it X-ed idiom:
He mandado pintar la cocina.
I've had the kitchen painted.
The ambiguity: causation vs permission
In some contexts the difference between making and letting collapses. Le dejé llevarse el libro is unambiguously permissive. Le hice llevarse el libro is unambiguously coercive. But Spanish, like English, often relies on context.
No le hagas hacer eso al niño.
Don't make the child do that.
No le dejes hacer eso al niño.
Don't let the child do that.
Both are common parenting advice, and they mean very different things. The verb you choose is the entire content of the difference — there is no other linguistic cue.
A subtler ambiguity arises with hacer + infinitive when the causation is indirect:
El humo hizo toser a los espectadores.
The smoke made the spectators cough. (causation without an agent — no one ordered anyone)
The construction does not require the causer to be a person, or to act intentionally. Anything that triggers the action — a smell, a song, a memory, a piece of news — fits.
The personal a with the causee
When the causee is a specific person and they appear as a full noun phrase (not just a clitic), the personal a is normally present.
Hizo cantar a los niños del coro.
She had the children of the choir sing.
Mandó traer una botella de vino al camarero.
He had the waiter bring a bottle of wine.
In a doubly-transitive causative — where both the causee and the object of the embedded verb are full noun phrases — it can become hard to tell which is which. Spanish solves the ambiguity by marking the causee with a and leaving the object unmarked when the object is inanimate; when both are animate, fronting and prosody help, but the construction is generally avoided in favor of a que-clause for clarity.
Le hice leer el contrato a Marta antes de firmarlo.
I had Marta read the contract before signing it.
Common mistakes
❌ Hice él estudiar más.
Incorrect — the causee needs case marking. Use a clitic or a + person.
✅ Le hice estudiar más. / Hice estudiar más a Juan.
I made him study more. / I made Juan study more.
❌ Me dejó a entrar.
Incorrect — there is no preposition between dejar and the infinitive.
✅ Me dejó entrar.
She let me in.
❌ Mandé que viene mañana.
Incorrect — mandar que takes the subjunctive (viniera/venga), but the more natural construction is the infinitive.
✅ Le mandé venir mañana. / Mandé que viniera mañana.
I had him come tomorrow.
❌ Hice cortar mi pelo.
The reflexive is needed when the action is performed on the speaker's own body or possession.
✅ Me hice cortar el pelo.
I got my hair cut.
❌ Lo hice a salir.
Incorrect — no preposition before the infinitive in a faire-causative.
✅ Lo hice salir. / Le hice salir.
I made him leave.
Key takeaways
The faire-causative — hacer/dejar/mandar + infinitive — is the compact way Spanish encodes one person making, letting, or ordering another to do something. The causee is normally marked with a dative clitic and an optional a + person phrase. Clitics climb onto the causative verb. Hacer spans direct coercion to abstract triggering; mandar presupposes authority; dejar is permission as obstacle removal. The choice between hacer and dejar in a given sentence is the entire difference between making someone do something and letting them — Spanish, like English, has no syntactic cue to disambiguate, only the verb itself.
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- Infinitivo después de verbos conjugadosA2 — When two verbs share a subject, the second one stays in the infinitive — quiero ir, puedo venir, suelo madrugar — never que, never a conjugated form.
- Leísmo: el uso de 'le' por 'lo' (admitido en España)B1 — In Spain, 'le' is routinely used instead of 'lo' as the direct-object pronoun for masculine human referents — and the RAE accepts this single variant of leísmo as standard.
- Verbos de influencia: pedir, mandar, recomendarB2 — Verbs that try to make someone else act — pedir, mandar, recomendar, aconsejar, sugerir, prohibir, permitir — all trigger the subjunctive in the subordinate clause, and most take a dative pronoun pointing at the person being influenced.
- Disparadores: consejos y mandatos indirectosB1 — Verbs of influence — asking, telling, recommending, ordering — trigger the subjunctive in the subordinate clause.