Hey there and welcome back. I'm Ganesh from LearnEnglishLab.com and in
today's lesson we're going to talk about have had, has had, and had had. Now many
students have come to me and said - I saw had had in a sentence. Is that
grammatically correct or is that an error - is that a typo?
meaning a printing error. And let me tell you
all three of these forms are grammatically correct and you should
learn how to use them correctly. Alright, over here I have three sentences that
are going to help us understand these forms
take a look at the first sentence - I have had lunch
what a strange sounding sentence right - I have had lunch.
well let me tell you a little secret
when you see two 'have's in a sentence
this is have, this is also have, it's just in the past participle form - its had but
it's basically just have. So when you see two 'have's in a sentence then the first
have and the second have have different meanings
this first have is called a helping verb
I've written helping verb over there and this had is called the main verb
it's called the main verb because it has the main meaning in the sentence - this
have only shows the tense of the sentence
so when you see have or had used as the main verb that means that it is
being used as a shortcut for some other word but in this case
what could that other word be? What could be the meaning of had? Well take a look
at this list over on the side. When we use have as the main verb in a sentence
it could mean a number of different things - it could mean to eat like when we
talk about having breakfast or having dinner
or it could mean to have a drink which means just to drink something or we
could be talking about owning something like when I say I have a car
I mean that I own a car or it could show some relationship between people
I have a sister - that means or that shows a brother-sister relationship or it
could talk about some kind of experience like if I said I had difficulty or I had
trouble finding the place
that means it was difficult for me to find the place
Now these are just some example meanings of have. The word have has many meanings
in English so if you want to see all of those meetings go and look at your
dictionary and find the word have and you'll see a lot of meanings but these
are some of the more common meanings
OK let's now look at our sentence - I have had lunch
so what could this had mean in this sentence?
well in this sentence it means eaten because here you see there's the word
lunch
so this sentence just means "I have eaten lunch."
we are using had as the shortcut for eaten
OK but what about this have? Well as I told you before that have shows the
tense of the sentence. To understand that
read the sentence without the have
I had lunch. I had lunch means I ate lunch. When did I have lunch?
maybe I had lunch yesterday or the day before - any time in the past and
that has no connection to the present. But when we use this have it shows that
my eating lunch has some connection to the present. For example if a friend
comes to me and asks "Hey do you want to have lunch with me?" and I don't want to
have lunch because my lunch is already finished
i would say "Oh I have had lunch"
Thank you very much. So this have shows that I just ate lunch so it shows some
connection to the present
So you see this have shows the tense and this had means eaten so they're
completely different functions or purposes
Alright with this knowledge let's now look at the second sentence - He has had
four jobs in two years
once again we're going to separate the two 'have's
this is the helping verb and this is the main verb. And the meaning of the main
verb here is worked so "He has worked four jobs in two years" is what it means
So once again had is being used as a shortcut for worked
What about this has? Well this is just the same as this have over here but we
are saying has because the subject is he
if the subject is he, she, or it
we say has. If the subject is I, you,
we or they we use have. So if the subject here were I, this would be have
I have had four jobs in two years
but since it's he, it's has and once again the tense here is the present perfect
tense and this 'has' shows some connection to the present so "He has had four jobs
in two years" and maybe he still works in one of
those jobs so it's connected to the present in some way
OK let's now move on and talk about the more challenging part which is had had
When Sandra arrived
everyone had had dinner. When you look at this sentence first it might seem a
little scary with two 'had's in it but we have this tool of separating the two 'have's
So let's do that
this is a grammar 'had' and this is the main verb 'had' and this 'had' means once
again eaten so "When Sandra arrived
everyone had eaten dinner" is the meaning
so one problem is now solved but what about this had
Why are we using had over here? The reason for that is that this sentence
does not have a connection with the present
it's talking completely about the past but also notice that there are two
actions in the sentence - there is arrived and there's also this 'had' which means
eaten
So when we put had before
one action it shows that this action happened first
and this action happened second. Down here I have a timeline and I will show
you the sentence on the timeline to make it easier for you to understand
Let's say that that's the future, this is now
and over on this side is the past. You see here that I have marked two actions
in the past. Now from this sentence which is the first action?
well it's easy - this action is first because we've put the word 'had' in front
of it
so first what happened
was everyone had eaten dinner - that happened first and after some time maybe
an hour later
Sandra arrived - so that action happened second
So because of that maybe Sandra did not get any food because there was no food
left over
everyone had eaten dinner or everyone had had dinner
so there was no more food to give to Sandra
so the purpose of this 'had' is only to show that this action happened first
so you see once again the two 'had's are completely different words and they have
completely different meanings
OK before we close this lesson I want to tell you two things very quickly
the first is making negative sentences - to make negative sentences with any of
these you can simply add not to the first have or had so I haven't had lunch
so I'm hungry or He hasn't had four jobs in two years, he's had only three jobs or
When Sandra arrived
everyone hadn't had dinner. So there was still some food left over or there was
still some dinner to give to Sandra. Now the second thing is pronouncing these
sentences - when we say any of these sentences we do not stress the first
have but we stress the second
so in this sentence we would shorten this have to
I've, so I've had lunch
we do that because this first have is not important
so I've had lunch. In the second example
He's had four jobs in two years. He's he's had four jobs in two years
it sounds like he is but it's actually he has
and in this last example When Sandra arrived
everyone had had dinner
Listen to that very carefully - everyone had had dinner. Had had. The first one is
weak - had, and the second is strong - had. So everyone had had dinner
I encourage you to practice these types of sentences
you can write your own practice sentences and put them in the comments
section for me to see
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I have lots of new lessons coming for you. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and
I'll see you in another lesson soon.