てあげる - Grammar Discussion

This is another one I get it confused with unfortunately.
喋(しゃべ)らないで だまっていってくれます か。[黙(だま)って行(い)く]
Could you not talk, shut up and go ? [ for me ]

Is the hint for くれる to look for a favor that would be for the speaker?

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Hey :grin:

The whole “shut up and go” part is the favor :smiley:

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I’m struggling with this particular sentence despite reading the various materials, and would really appreciate any insights.

このプレゼントをお父とうさんに わたしてあげて

In particular, I guess I struggle with ‘who’ is doing something for who.

eg. my initial thought was to use くれて because someone is giving you (=the speaker) the favor of giving the item to their dad?

But… based on the answer, I suspect that the てあげて・てこれて should be the actual subject of the sentence, rather than the speaker…? But since it’s not explicit in the example sentence, it’s not so obvious?

(Aさんは)このプレゼントをお父とうさんに わたしてあげて

As in, A is giving the present to his/her father and hence A-san is doing a favor (as opposed to the speaker of the sentence receiving a favor), resulting in てあげて?

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I don’t think you can use くれて as a command like that. You could use くれ perhaps, but I don’t think that’s the same concept because it’s more like a rougher version of ください. (Well that’s my interpretation at least.)

If the present was already given, it could be くれた. This would specifically mean that someone else gave the present to (probably) your father since you can’t do the action of くれる.

Since the English translation uses “please” you know it has to be in て form, and since the action is giving the only thing left that makes sense is あげて. The て form pretty much removes the possibility that you are doing the giving.

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@mickos @seanblue

Hey and sorry for the late answer :grin:

So basically, てあげる is used when:

  • Speaker does something to the listener
  • The listener does something for others
  • Speaker does something to others
  • Other person does something for another person

てあげる doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence, it simply points out that someone receives a benefit. (this can sound rude when you use this phrase while directly speaking to the beneficiary, for example, 言ってあげるよ - I am doing a favor of speaking to you - implying that the person in question is not worth it normally. Though this does not apply to てあげてください since we are not speaking directly to the beneficiary, right?

てあげてください is used when the speaker is asking the listener to perform a favor for the other person (third person). Usually used when both, the third person and listener are of lower status than the speaker or are in close/friendly relation with him/her.

In other words, the listener is doing the favor, his/her father (the third person) is receiving the favor (is the recipient, the beneficiary).

I think a good example would be a school, where the teacher asks his pupil to help another one.

じゅんくん、それをともちゃんに教えてあげてください。
Jun, please do a service to Tomo and teach her that.

I hope it helps!
Cheers,

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But in this case, since it is given to your father, who is part of your inner circle, can’t くれる also not be used? I’m mostly using this image to determine what to use, is it wrong? Or am I incorrectly applying it here? (I assume here that person A is giving it to my father.)

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See my earlier response. I think it’s the て form that makes くれる wrong here.

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@mrnoone

I am also confused about このプレゼントをお父とうさんに わたしてあげて. I would’ve expected it to combine あげる and くれる like it does in this sentence (used in the てくれない entry):

まつさに先生せんせい:「みしまさん、ちょっとにったさんを手伝てつだってあげてくれない?

Because you are doing the favour to me (くれる) of handing something over to your dad (あげる). If those verbs can be combined in the other example, why not in this sentence?

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Sure, it could be, but why does that mean it has to be? In this case it’s simply あげて(ください) instead.

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Could you explain why?

In “Please hand over this present to your dad.” aren’t I asking for a favour to be done to me? The favour of doing someone else a favour, as it were? So why would このプレゼントをお父とうさんに わたしてあげてくれて be an incorrect way of asking?

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I guess? There can be more than one way to say basically the same thing. But “please” in English is more often translated to て form, with an implicit or explicit ください. てくれる・てくれない would more often be translated as “won’t you” I think. It’s about what nuance you want. Do you want to tell someone to do something (politely) or do you want to ask them to do something? In this case the translation using “please” tells you that they want the nuance from て form.

Well this would be incorrect. You can’t use くれて ever I think (though someone with more experience should confirm). You’d have to either use くれない as you first proposed, or くれ. But くれ is command form, so you probably don’t want to use it outside of a group of close friends.

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The answer it looks for in that sentence is わたしてあげて. The て-form is mentioned in this list. I misinterpreted it at first, thinking you’d use the て-form of くれる in addition to the て-form of the favour-verb. But now I realise the least polite way of asking for a favour is to use 〜てくれる and then leave out the くれる-part entirely!

Still makes me wonder why any of the more polite options are not recognised as alternatives? @mrnoone

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@seanblue @Melanthe @Pep95
More alternative answers has been added to those examples, to be honest I am wondering if てあげてください doesn’t deserve grammar point on its own.

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In the sentence
周りの人の話をよく聞いてあげましょう。
I’m trying to figure out the purpose of よく. Is it intended to mean ‘often’, as Wiktionary suggests it can be used?

Thanks,
Cris

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@CrisH Hey! よく is the adjective い (いい) being changed to an adverb (く) to mean “well” or “properly.” Cheers!

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Me again!
So I’ve been given this sentence:
このプレゼントをお父とうさんに わたしてあげて
I can’t tell why it’s あげる and not くれる. The favour is being done for the person speaking, isn’t it? So wouldn’t it be ‘towards them’, so to speak? Or is the favour being done for the お父さん?

Thanks,
Cris

Hey again!

It might be better to think of てくれる and てあげる as “for (someone)” or “with (someone) in mind” rather than “towards (someone).” This particular sentence’s nuance is “do this for your father” rather than “do this for me.”

てくれる is perfectly acceptable here, it just changes who you are doing the favor for or who you should be keeping in mind when you do the favor. You can even combine the two (わたしてあげてくれる) to make the request done for the speaker and the favor done for the receiver (the father in this case). Hope this helps! Cheers.

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That helps a lot, thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

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I was confused by being shown the answer このプレゼントをお父さんに わたしてあげて because I don’t remember ever having to answer “please _” in a casual form before now.

I went back to the lesson for it and realized that you can drop the ください part, but I wasn’t ever asked to give the casual form in an answer before getting here. I suppose that’s the case for various other casual forms as well, but I found this confusing.

By the way, why does pressing “a” to view alternate answers not work if you got the answer wrong?

@flowsnake Hey! The addition of “please” in the translation is just to guide you away from using the imperative. While the imperative and polite request forms are accepted, てあげて is the most natural in this context and it is the version that matches the audio.

We thought it better to draw focus to the “main” answer of a review sentence when answering incorrectly. Once you have gotten that answer down (by answering again later in your review session), only then will you be able to view alternatives. We may change how this system works in the future. Cheers!