Can someone explain this あげる・もらう・くれる N4 Practice question please

Bunpro
#1

Okay.
So I thought I understood the circles and the directions of giving and receiving, but this N4 practice question from shinkanzen master has me bamboolzed.

> トム：「このセーター、サラさんに（１）んです。」
> 山田さん：「へえ、サラさんが作ったんでしょうか。」
> トム：「ええ、サラさんが（２）んです。」

> １a あげた  b くれた    c もらった
> ２a 作ってあげた  b 作ってくれた  c 作ってもらった
My answer & explanation

So I went for 1b and 2a.
My thinking, Sarah is not in my inner circle of family otherwise it would be 妹 etc. So I’m receiving from outside my inner circle => くれた
Then, what did Sarah do? Well she made it and ‘gave’ it to me.

Answer

1c
2b

My reaction to the answer

Ok, so my mistake, Sarah is a friend and inside my circle, so I もらう a sweater from her.
And again, rather than say she made it and gave it to me (how I’d say it in English) - she made it and I received it from her (how you’d say it in Japanese).

BUT I really don’t understand why the second answer is ～くれた - has Sarah elevated to a different circle between the first answer and the second? Surely if the first answer is もらう then the second answer is also ~もらう?

So my question is less ‘why did I get it wrong’ and more ‘can someone explain why the answer to 2 is what the textbook says’

thanks

:exploding_head:

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#2

Hey there!

A grammatical reason for why 1 is もらった is because に is used to mark the giver. To use くれる, は or が would be used to mark the giver. So, if you wanted to use くれる for 1, the sentence would have to be changed to サラさんはセーターをくれた (As for Sarah, she got me a sweater).

The answer to 2 is 作ってくれた because あげる is used when someone gives something to another person that is not in your group, and as mentioned previously, because the giver is marked with a が, using くれる would be the correct answer. In order to use もらう the particle after サラさん would have to be changed to に sound natural.

I hope this clears it up and answers your question! :grinning:

8 Likes
#3

Thank you! Completely got it. The explanatory notes in shinkanzen master don’t explicitly mention this though it’s in the example sentences (and I didn’t reference BP as I thought I knew this already)

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#4

Hello,

質問が一つだけあります: if you used もらう in the second sentence and said ‘サラさんに作ってもらったんです’, wouldn’t it mean that you had Sarah make you a sweater?

Thank you in advance for your answer.

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#5

Glad I could help!

5 Likes
#6

Yes you are correct, the nuance of the sentence would change to, ‘I had Sarah make me a sweater’, instead of ‘Sarah made a sweater for me’ since てもらう has the nuance of ‘to get some one to do’, while てくれる has the nuance of ‘some one did something for me’!

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