HAVE HAD / HAS HAD / HAD HAD - Are these correct? - English Grammar Made Easy

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.