てくれる - Grammar Discussion

Thanks for that - very helpful :slight_smile:
So, say if you were at work and called your partner to ask them to get milk for the household, presumably you wouldn’t use that then? But you might if you were at home and called them? Could you say 牛乳を買って帰ってくれるか。 Do you need a question marker for these requests? Although that does sound like an odd thing to specify, I’ll admit!

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@CrisH

That’s right! Since your partner is not coming towards you, but towards home.

This is OK. However, it is better to omit か or use the polite ますか at the end. Using か with the plain form (dictionary form) of the verb can sound a bit rude. Since you are talking with your partner (significant other), this would be acceptable, but still sound a bit rough/masculine. Cheers!

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Cool, thanks. I keep meaning to try and default to the polite forms!

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DBJG listed twice. Also, would it be possible to have these resources listed alphabetically?

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Hey :cowboy_hat_face::+1:

The double has been removed, and resources has been listed alphabetically!

Cheers!

I noticed there is also a third resource with no link (just a checkbox)

I’m a bit confused by

サンタさん、何なにを もってきてくれた の?[持もってくる]

It says “receiver’s point of view”, but it’s not the receiver who’s asking this, right? Otherwise I’d expect the sentence to be “What did Santa bring for me?”

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Can someone clarify the difference between もらうand くれる? As I understand it both are from the view of the receiver, both are within your UCHI group, and もらう carries an additional inflection of pleasure or gratitude.

BunPro has no readings or grammar points liked to てくれる。 Obviously I’m going to hit Tae Kim again, but the online resources I find all cover
different aspects of the elephant without describing the elephant itself, as it were.

ありがとう!

Simply, もらう means ‘to receive’ and くれる means ‘to give’.
田中さんは本をもらった - Mr. Tanaka received a book.
田中さんは本をくれた - Mr. Tanaka gave a book (to me or to my uchi)
I shared a video a long time ago that makes this grammar point super easy to understand. Have a look here.

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In the above example, why shouldn’t the か particle be added, since this is a question?

And to add, why does the following example require the か particle?

Or does this have to do with politeness levels? Casual sentences don’t require か while polite do?

The sentence ending particle か works like a question mark. So generally you wouldn’t have a か and a question mark in the same sentence, you would simply have a 。.
公園に行きますか。
公園に行く?
So the presence of a question mark in the example sentence indicates whether you should have か.

I was wondering about that as well. Any explanation for that?

and @Isurandil492 ,

This person is asking Santa-san what they brought. It can work for any situation where someone else is bringing something for somebody. It doesn’t need to be the receiver for it to work.

Imagine you are at a party, its bring your own food. Your friend arrives, you could easily ask them 何を持ってきてくれたの? even though they didn’t brining anything for you specifically.

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More commonly, people ask their friends or children what Santa got them. In that case they would associate with that person and not with Santa, and in that sense it’s the receiver’s point of view.

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I’ve been wondering, since the て form of a verb can be used to ask someone to do something,
is it wrong to useくれて instead of くれる?

I just put it as my answer and it was marked wrong, so I guess it’s wrong?

They mean different things.

It is a polite way to command someone to do something. As a quick review, when doing this you are omitting a ください after て. ください is the imperative form of 下さる(くださる) which is the humble version of くれる.

くれて: Please do this for me
くれる?: Can you do this for me?

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So withくれて your commanding someone in a polite way to do something, while with くれる you’re asking for a favor?

The intended meaning is roughly the same (you want someone to do something for you), just the way you’re asking is different? Following that it would seem that くれる is more polite/not as firm as くれて(ください) since you’re not commanding the other person.

Is that correct?

In English, I know all these polite expressions sound kinda the same, but you’ll have to fight that urge to call them the same thing in Japanese.

So between くれて (shortened from polite くれてください) and くれる? (casual くれる that’s turned into a question), I’ll use this example to show the feelings that go with them.

Imagine someone asking you to lend them a book, 本を貸す(ほんをかす)…
From my boss:
貸してくれて – はい (inside voice: ok, sure)
貸してくれる? – はい (inside voice: why is he being so chummy?)
From my friend:
貸してくれて – うん (inside voice: sure, we’re friends. no problem)
貸してくれる?-- いいよ (inside voice: don’t worry, man. I don’t mind lending it)

Notice that with くれて there’s no discussion – just “lend it to me”. With くれる? it’s a statement turned into a question, so there’s a small bit of doubt, like “I’m pretty sure you’ll lend it to me, but maybe not?”.

If you’re really curious, here’s a related thread…
So, how do you ask for a favor?

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Before we eat, could you clean the table for me?

Why is this wrong?
()べる()にテーブルの()綺麗()にしてもらえませんか