NI1 - The difference between HAVE and HAVE GOT

Some students asked me about this confusing point. Here you are some explanations and a couple of exercises to help you.

The main difference between them is that HAVE is a simple form and HAVE GOT is a compound or perfect form. This means that with HAVE you need an auxiliary, like any other verb, but with HAVE GOT the auxiliary is have.
Let's see these examples:

• I have a dog  ----  I've got a dog
• She DOESN'T have a car  ----  She HASN'T got a car  (a different auxiliary)
• DO they have any children?  ----  HAVE they got any children?
• No, they DON'T  ----  No, they HAVEN'T

The other difference is about meaning. HAVE is used for possession and as a sinonym of take, especially in American English but HAVE GOT is used only for possession in British English:

• I've got a big house   but   I have a shower every morning (British English)
• I have a big house    and   I have a shower every morning (American English: no difference)

But this works only in present simple because in the rest of the tenses this doesn't happen like that:

TENSE	AFFIRMATIVE	NEGATIVE	INTERROGATIVE
PRESENT CONTINUOUS	She is having a lot of problems	She isn't having many problems	Is she having any problem?
PRESENT PERFECT	He has had a problem	He hasn't had any problem up to now	Has he had any problem up to now?
PAST SIMPLE	I had a car	I didn't have a bike	Did you have a car?
With modals	I can have a pet	I shouldn't have a dog	May I have a cat?

So if you check in the list of irregular verbs, you'll see that the three columns are like this:

HAVE / HAVE GOT           HAD         HAD        Tener, tomar, tener que

Here you are some links to practise with this grammar point:

exercise 1     exercise 2