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The full sentence I used was "I heard you had Diwali next week, will you celebrate?".

The auto-complete functionality of a Google search for "I heard you had" provides a lot of results, like "I heard you had a ruff day.". So my assumption is that in general, the construct "I heard you had ..." should be fine. Is that the case? In addition, is my first example sentence about Diwali grammatically correct?

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  • First, English spelling is weird: it's rough, not ruff. You'd only see "I heard you had a ruff day" as a punny caption on a cartoon with some dogs. Second: in general, yes, "I heard you had..." is perfectly standard English. But it casts the event in the past tense. So you wouldn't say "I heard you had Diwali next week", you'd say "I heard you had Diwali last week".
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Nov 6, 2015 at 16:31
  • Ah, about the rough/ruff you are perfectly right. I copy-pasted the auto-completed sentence from Google without thinking about it. About the past tense, that sounds correct to me. Could I say "I heard you will have ..." to make it about the future?
    – crazysaem
    Commented Nov 6, 2015 at 16:40
  • Yep, that's fine.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Nov 6, 2015 at 16:41
  • I heard you had a math test next week that you haven't studied for seems okay to my version of English @Don Bron. As does I heard you had Mr Stewart next week for Chem class.
    – user20792
    Commented Nov 6, 2015 at 16:56
  • You could also say "I heard you have Diwali next week".
    – G. Ann - SonarSource Team
    Commented Nov 6, 2015 at 17:19

3 Answers 3

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I heard you had...

is a grammatical and natural construction or expression.

I heard you had Diwali next week, will you celebrate?

is okay, but in formal contexts, combining two sentences with a comma and no conjunction is considered an error (a comma splice). Therefore I would avoid the error by using different punctuation:

I heard you had Diwali next week; will you celebrate?

or

I heard you had Diwali next week--will you celebrate?

or

I heard you had Diwali next week. Will you celebrate?

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  • Use — for emdashes.
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Nov 6, 2015 at 20:36
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    This is not really correct. As mentioned earlier, "I heard you had.." refers to the past tense, and "...Diwali next week" is referring to the future tense, so these do not really go together.
    – Steve Ives
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 14:33
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"I heard you..." is a valid expression (Also, "I hear you..." , but only in certain circumstances. The expression refers to something almost literal i.e. the speaker has been told about something that he/she was not previously aware e.e. "I heard you have a new job", "I hear you're learning French" etc.

Also, in English, we don't refer to holidays and religious occasions as something someone "has", so you would say "I heard it's Diwali next week", although you might say "I hear you have a big religious event next week" or "I hear you have a wedding next weekend", although this last example would imply that the person being spoken to is simply going to a wedding; if they were getting married they would say "I hear you;re getting married next weekend".

It is used when the information (that you have heard) has come from some source other than the person you are spoken to, and is used where there is an element of doubt as to whether or not the information is correct, so a sentence beginning "I hear/heard" ..." can almost be regarded as a question.

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  • "have Christmas" is perfectly acceptable. Here is an Ngram books.google.com/ngrams/… Not all are in the required sense, but here are some appropriate examples: "Wombats don't have Christmas", "Oh, I know you can have Christmas under any circumstances", "We can't very well have Christmas without one".
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Jun 4, 2016 at 20:14
  • Maybe those two words occur next to each other quite frequently in Google searches, but "I hear you have Christmas..." or "I heard you had Christmas..." Is just not something a native English speaker would say.
    – Steve Ives
    Commented Jun 4, 2016 at 23:21
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You use "I heard" to refer to hearsay information- you are not completely sure whether it is correct, or you didn't hear it from the source.

You can use "I heard you had..." about something that happened in the past:

I heard you had an accident last week

I heard you had got married

Or about something in the future that may not go ahead or has already been cancelled

I heard you had a date next week with that cute guy from accounts...

I heard you had a job interview next week but it fell through

If you are talking about something in the future that will definitely go ahead, you should really use

I heard you have a job interview next week

I heard you have Diwali next week, will you celebrate?

Other answers suggest that it's not normal to refer to holidays using the words have or had. If you google have a good Christmas, you will get lots of hits, incliding this from the British Council learn English site:

Avoid these things and you’ll have a good chance of having a truly Merry Christmas

Imagine a situation where a guy takes his children to Lappland for Christmas. Back at work after the holiday, a colleague says to him "I heard you had an exciting Christmas!"

In a monoculture society, it's hard to imagine somebody saying "I heard you have Christmas next week". This sounds wrong not for grammatical or idiomatic reasons, but because Christmas is the same day every year and everybody knows when it is. Furthermore, everybody is involved, like it or not.

Diwali, however, is like Easter- it's on a different date each year. It's therefore easy to imagine in a multicultural society like England a Christian (who has a vague idea about Hindu traditions) saying to a Hindu "I heard that you have Diwali next week".

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  • I see problems with the verb tense in several of the examples above. "I heard you had a date next week" is just obviously an incorrect use of past tense, for example. "I hear you are going to have" or "I hear you're having a date" would put the event properly in the future.
    – user8356
    Commented Jan 16, 2018 at 14:44
  • @user8356: The "going to" is not necessary: you can say "I have an important meeting next week", which means that there is currently an appointment in place for a meeting next week. "I had an important meeting next week" means that an appointment was (at some time in the past) in place, but is no longer in place (it has been cancelled). "I heard you had a date next week" is perfectly valid, and it means that an appointment was in place, but is no longer in place (it has been cancelled)... alternatively, the usage of "I heard..." implies hearsay, which makes a backshift necessary.
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Jan 16, 2018 at 14:57

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