nihongo wo benkyou shitai

Here's one that I always have trouble with: Causative sentences. This is a rather posh way of describing sentences in which one person makes another person do something. A classic text book example would be something like:

The teacher made the students read the book in English.

The grammatical subject of the sentence is the person doing the making, in this case the teacher. Had the sentence been:

The students were made to read the book in English by the teacher.

Then we have a Causative Passive sentence, in which the subject of the sentence is the person being made. Such devilry shall be the subject of the next blog entry, so ignore it for now.

Where were we? Oh yeah. Causative sentences describe situations where someone makes another person do something. Unfortunately, the this is far too simple, so the Japanese decided to 'spice things up a bit' and give causatives a dual meaning. Causatives can also describe situations where someone lets another person do something! The only way to tell whether the Japanese sentence is a 'make' or a 'let' is to read the context of the surrounding sentences. Great.

The Japanese structure of causative sentences is pretty straigthforward:

[who made/let] は [who was made/let] に [verb clause]

There is also a verb conjugation to deal with.

ーる verbs, drop る and add させる
ーう verbs, drop う and add あせる
する --> させる
くる --> こさせる

So, let's give it a go!

English: The teacher made the students read the book in English.
Jenglish: [teacher][students][English][in][book][read]
日本語： 先生は生徒達に英語に本を読ませました。

English: I will let Matt buy me a beer.
Jenglish: [I][Matt][beer][buy]
日本語： 私はマットにビールを買わせます。

Notice that 買う simply ends in う? う verbs like this add a 'w' during conjugation, so we get 買わせる and not 買あせる.

またね。。。