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
If that’s the case, I feel like there should be a better explanation. Every single other example sentence makes sure to have “me” or “for me” in them except for this one. It is very confusing.
Hey @okayfrog !
The translation of this sentence could change depending on context.
The first one would be ‘Santa, what did you bring for me?’. This sentence is from the point of view of the receiver speaking to Santa.
The second would be ’ What did Santa bring for you? '. This one is the point of view from a parent to a child asking what Santa brought for them.
Since this sentence does not give extra context on who is speaking, I have changed the translation to fit the first context to avoid further confusion!
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Great to hear, thank you.
Isn’t this (do me the favor of) misleading into thinking it is てあげる? (it’s basically how てあげる explained)
Or maybe level of my English isn’t high enough and “do me the favor of” doesn’t mean that person will do a fevor but something related to favor which is not technically a favor? Complecated a bit
I believe the crux is that, もらう can’t be used to make a request of someone.
I think the only time you’d see もらえない/もらえません would be in it’s usage as “to receive” e.g
卒業証書をもらいませんか
“Aren’t you going to receive your diploma?”
卒業証書をもらいない
“I won’t receive my diploma”
Edited to reflect corrections from below
In your sentence you are making a request for someone else to take action on your behalf so it would be best to use くれる
If you wanted to use もらう:
- 食べる前に弟にテーブルの上を綺麗にしてもらう
- “I’ll get my younger brother to clean the top of the table before we eat”
And then you might go and ask your younger brother:
- 食べる前にテーブルの上を綺麗にしてくれませんか？
- “Before eating, couldn’t you please clean the top of the table?”
And for completeness:
- 弟にテーブルの上を綺麗にしてもらった
- “I got my younger brother to clean the top of the table for me”
Though now the mystery becomes, why you’d be talking so politely to a younger sibling 
No. You can make requests with 〜もらえないか、
〜もらえないだろうか、〜いただけないでしょうか and so on.
That would be もらいませんか
Interesting, you can request to receive? I mean, I know it makes sense in english (“give me”) but at first glance that would seem too demanding for as polite as Japanese tends to be, so I thought that might the nuance.
Thanks for correcting that misconception and the conjugations. I’ve updated my post
But it does still seem wrong to to ask for house work using もらえる
What’s the nuance then? Is it:
- just more polite than ーてくれる
- it is best used to request acceptance for the imposition of your will (e.g 私のお願いを聞いてもらえますか?)
The latter there seems to track in my mind
綺麗にしてくれますーPlease clean it (for me)
綺麗にしてもらえますーPlease accept cleaning it/Please accept (my) cleaning of it (?)