In the lesson for うちに, this example sentence was given:
授業を受けているうちに、宿題を完成させた。
I was able to finish my homework while taking a class.
The sentence used the causative form させる when the action was done by the speaker.
What would be the difference in just using する here? Like:
授業を受けているうちに、宿題を完成した。
Where did the “was able to finish” come from? Is it because of させる？
Wouldn’t できる be more natural to use, like:
授業を受けているうちに、宿題を完成できた。
Thanks!
It’s because you are “causing your homework to complete/finish”
Another common phrase for this is 宿題を終わらせる
Thanks for responding! That actually sounds a bit weird in English. lol. Well, I guess I’ll just have to add that to the pile of the many idiosyncrasies of Japanese that I have to keep in mind.
Haha! Funny you say that, cause I feel exactly the same way every time I encounter something like this. The most recent example:
彼女は可愛くて仕方ないという顔で孫を見つめている。
“She gazes at her grandson with a look of cuteness on her face.”
To me that sounds like the girl made a cute face while gazing, but to my Japanese teacher is more like the grandson is cute and she can’t help stare at him (or something to that effect). I’m like, how? Lol.
Anyway, just wanted to share that. I don’t want to hijack your thread.
Going back on topic, I think this sentence makes sense if you think about it as “the teacher allowed me to do my homework”. That why it’s “I was able to finish my homework…”. At least that’s one way to interpret it.
This is the problem with sentences out in a vacuum, there’s no context, so you have to make assumptions, but this would be my guess.
HTH!
These sentences are actually fairly easy to parse once you know how.
彼女は【可愛くて仕方ないという顔で】孫を見つめている。
彼女は孫を見つめている。She looks at her grandchild.
可愛くて仕方ないという顔で In a “cute and can’t do anything about it” way
彼女は可愛くて仕方ないという顔で孫を見つめている。She looks at her grandchild (In a cute and can’t do anything about it way)
Edit: After rereading my answer, I want to clarify that by “cute and can’t do anything about it way”, I mean she thinks the grandson is cute and can’t help but do (whatever the action is, in this case look)
What!? That’s how I understood that as well. lol Even ChatGPT interpreted it the way you did:
The sentence means “She is looking at her grandchild with an unbelievably cute expression on her face.”
I think it has to do with how で works there though. Like, if I breakdown the sentence
As for her
(で) with a face that is cute and cannot be helped
looking at grandson
I originally interpreted で as a method/way that she is looking at her grandchild, but your Japanese teacher interpreted it (で) as a reason for why she is looking at her grandchild.
So I guess her translation would be:
She is looking at her grandchild with a face / who has a face that is unbearably cute
I agree, Japanese is a very contextual language so it’s really hard to get the full meaning of some of the example sentences. Thanks a lot for responding!
I believe it is describing the sort of face that the person is making, but it isn’t saying she is making a cute face. You could imagine the person making the sort of face someone might make at a puppy
Oh by the way, does this apply to all verbs or only a few? For example, can I say 窓を壊させた (I caused the window to break)?
It is grammatical. But that doesn’t necessarily make it natural to say.
Ah, but 宿題を終わらせる is natural to say, right? So, only a few verbs sound natural in causative form when used in first person pov. Thanks
Thanks a lot!
