Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[el7jake]

Please to look at the following sentence:

He had better go to work soon--it's getting late!

I would like know why this sentence uses HAD GO instead of HAD TO GO. If you use had + a verb, doesn't has to be the past perfect--HAD WENT?

Jake L.

[MauraS]

This actually isn't a verb tense. "Had" doesn't go with "go". Because you are right, we would say "had to go".

The expression here is "had better". Here is another example, "I had better give you a good response."

"Had better" means that someone "must" do something. If the person does not do the action required, there may be bad consequences.

"You had better clean your room." (the bad consequences are that if you don't clean your room, your parents will be mad at you.)

Or in your example: "He had better go to work." (if he doesn't go to work soon, he may be in trouble)

I hope this helps!

I do an audio podcast at www.culips.com. Can we use your question in our podcast? It's a great question!