| Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about how to use "have to." I'm going to focus on using "have to" to make negative statements and to make two kinds of questions. Let's get started. First, I want to begin with a review point. When we use "have to," we talk about our responsibilities. These are the things we must do, tasks we are responsible for. This can be at work, at home, in our social lives, whatever. "Have to" is used to explain responsibilities. We often use "have to" for things we do not want to do. Things we have a responsibility to do but, maybe, we're not interested in doing that thing. |
| Let's look at some examples. First, "I have to go to school." Or, "She has to go to work." These are examples of things that are our responsibility to do but, maybe, we don't want to do that thing, or we're not interested in doing that thing at a specific time or on a certain day. Then, when we use "have to" in the negative form, it means we don't have a responsibility to do that thing. Or, in other words, "don't have to" or "doesn't have to" is use to express a lack of responsibility. "Lack of something" means no of something, zero of something. No responsibility for something. We use "don't have to" or "doesn't have to." One important point about using this for the negative, to make a negative statement: we use this for activities that we can reasonably be expected to do. A mistake that I hear students make a lot is when they're practicing making sentences with the negative form, "don't have to" and "doesn't have to," they'll try to make an example sentence using something that, yes, they don't have a responsibility to do, however, it's something really strange. A great example is a student, or many students actually, who've said, "I don't have to drink alcohol at work." This is a strange example because, yes, even though it's grammatically correct, it's really strange to have a job where you drink alcohol. Maybe, if you're a bartender, for example, it's reasonable; but in most jobs, it's not reasonable to drink alcohol at work. If you say, "I don't have to drink alcohol at work," it sounds strange. We use "don't have to" or "doesn't have to" to talk about things that we can reasonably expect to do. Let's look at some natural examples of this. First, "I don't have to go to work today." For example, I took the day off. This is a reasonable expectation. "I don't have to go to work today. It's a holiday.," for example. "He doesn't have to take out the garbage tonight." He doesn't have to take out the garbage tonight. This is a task, a household task, that a person can reasonably be expected not to have to do, maybe, this one night in particular, maybe his sister is going to do it, or someone else is going to take care of this. He doesn't have to do this activity tonight. Another one, "You don't have to pay me back." This is a very common expression we use among friends. You pay for someone's coffee or you pay for someone's lunch or a small item and the friend says, "You don't have to pay me back." I'll pay, you don't have to pay me back. It's reasonable to expect repayment, but if you say this, "you don't have to pay me back," it sounds quite natural. There's no responsibility to paying me back, in other words. Please make sure when you make the negative with this grammar point that you use it for reasonable expectations only. It sounds strange if you use it for something a little bit crazy or a little bit strange. |
| Okay. With that, then, let's move on to the first of the two types of questions I want to talk about. The first question pattern I want to mention is an information pattern. You're looking to get some kind of information. By this, I mean, we use a Wh-question like who, where, when, why, or how to begin our question. We follow that with "do" or "does," your subject, "have" or "has" depending on your subject, and "to" plus some verb or verb phrase. We use this kind of question to ask about someone's responsibilities. Let's look at some examples. First one, "What do you have to do today?" This is a question about the other person's responsibilities on this day only. What do you have to do today? I have to go to work. I have to go to the post office. I have to pick up my son from school, for example. Those are the person's responsibilities for that day. What do you have to do today? You're looking for information. |
| Let's look at the next example. "Where does he have to go?" "Where does he have to go?" is a question about a location. In this case, "where does he have to go," you're asking the question for another person. Maybe, there's a student in a school looking for a place or looking for something, some kind of information or looking for a person. I might say to someone else, "where does he have to go?" Maybe, where does he have to go to find this information. Where does he have to go to get this document, for example. We're looking for information for this other person. In this case, where does he have to go. I'm talking to a third person in this situation. One more example sentence, "Who do we need to meet?" Who do we need to meet? Again, in this case there are probably three people in this situation. There's the speaker, and then we know there's another person here, at least one more person, because we've used "we" in the sentence. Who do we need to meet? We're asking this question to someone else. We need to meet with someone about something but we don't know who is the person, who do we need to meet. When you ask with this kind of pattern, you're looking for something that you're looking for. There's some kind of information you need to get. You can use a pattern like this to get that. |
| Let's move on now to the second question pattern that I want to talk about today. That is questions for confirmation. Confirmation means check. How to check using a question to check the information that you have to make sure you are correct or, maybe, incorrect. Confirmation questions. When we make a confirmation question, the pattern is quite different from the information question pattern we looked at a moment ago. Here, we will begin the question with "don't" or "doesn't" depending on the subject. "Don't" or "doesn't," plus your subject, plus "have to," plus your verb or verb phrase. Let's look at some examples here. First one, "Don't you have to leave?" We'll typically use this kind of intonation pattern. Don't you have to leave? It's a question. This question means the speaker thinks the listener has to leave. The speaker thinks it's the listener's responsibility to leave, but, perhaps, the listener is not leaving, is not making motions like they are planning to leave. The speaker wants to confirm, "don't you have to leave?" Like the speaker thinks there's some responsibility here. We'll talk about responses to this in just a moment. Let's look at another example of this confirmation question now. Second, "Doesn't he have to finish his homework?" Doesn't he have to finish his homework? Perhaps, this is a parent talking to another parent about the student or about someone's son. Doesn't he have to finish his homework? They're trying to confirm something. Again, the speaker thinks that this person, this he in this situation, has a responsibility to finish his homework. But, maybe, there's been some kind of change. The speaker asks this question to another person, maybe another parent or a teacher. Doesn't he have to finish his homework? Again, we're confirming. I think this, but is it correct? It's another way to understand this. Let's look at one more example. Don't we have to get up early? Don't we have to get up early? "Get up early" means get out of bed early, wake up early. Don't we have to get up early? This might be between a married couple, for example. Don't we have to get up early tomorrow? For example. Again, the speaker thinks I have a responsibility, or we have a responsibility to wake up early tomorrow. Is that correct? That's a confirmation question. |
| Let's take a look at some ways that we can answer confirmation questions. Let's look at some sample responses. First, let's go back to this question, "Don't you have to leave?" To respond to this question, we might use something like this, "Yes, I do." Yes, I do. This "Yes, I do" is a short way to say, "Yes, I do have to leave." In other words, yes. It's a yes response. To make a full answer, Yes, I do have to leave. Most of the time, we just say, "Yes," or "Yes, I do." If, however, the answer is no, we can say, "No, I don't have to," in this case, "leave yet." You might use something like "yet" or "already," as we see here. "No, I don't have to leave yet." This "yet" shows the speaker is going to leave, has to leave, but not quite. Not quite. It's not quite the time to leave, in other words. "Yes, I do," or "No, I don't." These two are the basic yes or no responses, and we can add some extra information at the end. |
| Let's move on to the second sentence, "Doesn't he have to finish his homework?" To respond to this question, we could say, "Yes, he does." Similar here, "Yes, I do," but because the subject is "he," "yes, he does." In no response, we could say, for example, "He finished it already." He finished it already. I mentioned we could use "already" or "yet" to talk about the status of an activity. He finished it already. That means, no, he doesn't have to, in the future, because he finished it already. The action is done. It's completed. It's finished. This is a sample answer. |
| Okay. Let's move on to one more. "Don't we have to get up early?" We could answer this with, "Yes, we do," or simply, "No, we don't." If you were ever not sure of the best way to answer one of these confirmation questions, you can just say "yes" or "no," and you can follow it with a repetition of the thing that was in the question. I showed you this here. Yes, I do have to leave. You can use the same thing that you heard in the question to answer that. We see that down here. Don't we have to get up early. Yes, we do have to get up early. Of course, if the answer is no, just use the negative and the same pattern. Like, "No, I don't have to leave." "No, we don't have to get up early." To tell the difference between these confirmation questions and these information questions, you can focus on the beginning of the sentence. Is there this WH style question at the beginning of the sentence, or do you hear a "don't" or a "doesn't" at the beginning of the sentence? This is a pretty good hint that I hope can help you tell the difference between these two. |
| I hope that this helps you in making negative statements and questions with "have to." Of course, if you have any questions or comments or want to practice making sentences, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye. |
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