Make them leave. Hacer VS Obligar.

Question

Haz que se vayan.

Oblígalos a que se vayan.

Obligar needs a after it in this sentence.

Obligar also needs that los which is not needed by hacer. This is my understanding from Maria.

I wonder why it needs that los and why hacer doesn't? Personally Oblíga a que se vayan sounds perfectly good to me but I guess Oblígalos a que se vayan is the way.

Gracias.

Answer 1

I wonder why it needs that los and why hacer doesn't?

Because those verbs mean different things altogether. "Hacer" means "to do/make", while "obligar" means "to force". Obligar is something you must do on people, so you need a D.O. (the people who are to leave), or it makes no sense. On top of that object, it needs another one to indicate what are you forcing them to do; this object has the preposition "a" (and it is not an indirect object). Hacer only requires the thing that you do, but you don't have to do it on people.

"Hacer que se vayan" is a kind of Do a "they-leave-this-place-situation" (I know you don't talk like that in English), where you manage to do something so that they leave the place, rather than making them leave. In fact, you don't have to force them to leave; you could simply give them money so they go to the cinema, or anything... as long as they go. In the end, they leave, and this "they" clearly indicates who is leaving, so you don't need to say "los".

Thanks, Lazarus, this makes sense. So, is his "Oblíga a que se vayan" correct? - --Mariana--, Aug 13, 2011

I would say that the omission of "lo" is marginal, and extremely rare outside of literary texts. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is not fluent. - lazarus1907, Aug 13, 2011

Answer 2

It's made my head spin a bit thinking about how to use this, but something tells me you could use imperative here, ie "Oblígalos a irse". I Googled it and you get quite a lot of 'Oblígalos + infinitive', here are a couple:

• No los fuerces a amarte. Obligalos a irse, y él que insista en quedarse, es él que realmente te ama.

• Ve por los caminos y las veredas, y oblígalos a entrar para que se llene mi casa.

Failing confirmation or otherwise on this, I think I'd just chicken out and go for "Diles que se vayan."

¿Qué piensas?

él que (tilde) - pesta, Aug 13, 2011

oops - copied and pasted but not checked! :) - galsally, Aug 13, 2011

Answer 3

"Haz que" means "make it so that", so "Haz que se vayan." means "Make it so that they leave", which is normally said in English "Make them leave."

"Obligar" means to force and requires a direct object ("los" in this case), so "Make them leave." is either:

Oblígalos a irse.

Oblígalos a que se vayan.

Since this is a future event in this case, the subjunctive form should be used in my opinion.