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?”.
Before we eat, could you clean the table for me?
Why is this wrong?
食べる前にテーブルの上を綺麗にしてもらえませんか