Causative - Grammar Discussion

Grammar Points
#1

Verbs [causative voice]
to make/let/have somebody do something

Structure

V(る1) → 見 る → 見 させる
V(す) → 話 す → 話 させる
V(る5) → 座 る → 座 らせる
V(う) → 歌 う → 歌 わせる
V(く) → 歩 く → 歩 かせる
V(つ) → 打 つ → 打 たせる
V(ぬ) → 死 ぬ → 死 なせる
V(ぶ) → 飛 ぶ → 飛 ばせる
V(む) → 休 む → 休 ませる
V(ぐ) → 泳 ぐ → 泳 がせる

:warning: Irregular Verbs :warning:

する → させる
くる → こさせる

:warning: [に or を can mark the doer]

Causative is used when someone makes or lets someone do something. Since it is an ambiguous expression, the exact meaning depends on context. However, Verb[causative][て] + くれる・もらう・あげる more often means “let.”

Both に and を can mark the doer of the action. に normally implies “let,” while を implies “make.” There are exceptions.

View on Bunpro

#2

for the sentence Babies cannot eat on their own, so we have to make them eat .,
why for example can’t たべさせなければいけない be the answer?

#3

@eran Hey! Since this sentence is not testing “have to” or “must,” but the causative, we include “[causative + なきゃいけない]” as a hint. “たべさせなければいけない” is grammatical and would work in this sentence, we just wanted everyone to focus on conjugating for the causative without worrying about which form to use for “have to” or “must.” You should be seeing these types of hints appear in the answer blank (in the Japanese sentence) before you type your answer. Cheers!

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#4

My textbook says that the one being caused to do something is marked with an を when what they are being caused to do is intransitive, and a に when what they are being caused to do is transitive. I don’t see any mention of this in the explanation, but all of the example sentences fit the pattern. Is this untrue? I feel like if it is true it should probably be included in the grammar point. My textbook is Situational Functional Japanese.

#5

just to clarify, based on the notes in the grammar point I was led to believe

先生が私をコヒーを作らせました。would mean, my teacher made me make coffee - if を in fact carries the nuance of to make someone do something.

But my teachers are saying the correct sentence is actually

先生が私にコヒーを作らせました。Which can mean either let or made with the differentiator either being context or a 〜て下さった・〜てくれった to imply having done me the favor of letting me.

#6

Hi everyone! I have a question. How can you turn this into negative? For example, if I want to say “XX person didn’t permit YY person to do this and that”? Thanks!

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#7

Good question! In this kind of sentence, most of the time it will be implied that someone did not do something ‘for you’, so you would combine させる with てくれる.

お母さんは私にダンスの習い事をさせてくれなかった。
‘My mom didn’t let me do dance practice’

If you were talking about someone else, you would probably use the てあげる structure instead of くれる. or just させなかった by itself.

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#8

I had the same question. Bunpro is really not clear at all what answer it wants for these must/mustn’t questions. The hints for this question don’t say anything about which form to use – it just says " A grammar point that is used when someone either lets or makes someone do (A)." It sucks to keep getting this wrong because even though なければ is grammatical, Bunpro wants you to only enter なきゃ, without telling you that. D:

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#9

Thanks for letting us know about this! I have just added ‘Colloquial’ to the tense information for this question. Ideally all questions should tell you in the tense information if a colloquial form is expected, but it appears that this information was missing from this question! Sorry for the inconvenience :bowing_man:

#10

Oh, awesome! Thanks for that. :slight_smile:

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#11

Weird question.

In English, we use a construction that is something like “I made myself practice guitar every day.” And this implies that is was difficult, and we didn’t always want to be doing it.

Does this translate into Japanese, where you could use a reflexive pronoun to imply this. Example, “jibun wo saseru” = “I made myself do it.”

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