てもらう - Grammar Discussion

[bokudake]

I’m also having difficulties interpretting the part after the comma of this sentence.
雨が降りそうだから、(その人たちに)傘を持っていってもらってね。[持って行く]
It looks like it might rain, so have them take an umbrella (for me).

I guess my problem is remembering that XにYてもらう means: to have X do Y for me, because this meaning is not intuitive for me. This sentence is even more complex because you’re asking someone to have someone else do something.

Without knowing (or forgetting) this grammar point I tend to intuitivelly wrongly interpret it as:
It looks like it might rain, so go receive/take an umbrella from them (for me).

I understand that this:
雨が降りそうだから、(その人たちに)傘を持っていってもらうね
would mean: It looks like it might rain, so I will have them take an umbrella (for me).

[Yumari-1]

If I posted in these grammar threads every time I have a question I would already have over ~100 posts likely They seem desolate unfortunately, with questions left unanswered or people coming years later and expressing the same difficulties.

Also staff seems to be tired with my bug reports as they were getting responses initially and things were getting changed if needbe, but now they’re all left alone And I don’t think I have a lot of them, only 5-6 actually over 2-3 months…

But anyway, here I also have trouble parsing 「雨が降りそうだから、傘を持って行ってもらってね。」
First of all, I don’t see a way to magically infer その人たちに or such without any further context. Google even sees this as “It looks like it’s going to rain, so please bring an umbrella with you.” This is how it looks in the lesson, at least.

Another confusion point:
「朝から頭が痛かったから病院に行って、医者 に 見てくれた。」
This is weird to me in light of Misa’s (superb IMO) explanation from (https://youtu.be/lp-2PNSANJ8?t=571). She uses a different particle, and seems the sentence would become:
「朝から頭が痛かったから病院に行って、医者 が 見てくれた。」
as in “…doctor looked at me.”/"…doctor examined me".

Misa doesn’t even use に with ~てくれる directly at all, but rather with ~てもらう.

[nekoyama]

@Yumari-1

But anyway, here I also have trouble parsing 「雨が降りそうだから、傘を持って行ってもらってね。」

The speaker (A) asks someone else (B) to もらう the action of 傘を持って行く (to bring/take an umbrella) from some unknown party that’s definitely not B, and very likely not A. Therefore there should be someone else who is not mentioned explicitly and who is supposed to take an umbrella with them. (Or multiple people, of course.)

@Yumari-1

Google even sees this as “It looks like it’s going to rain, so please bring an umbrella with you.”

It can’t be this because if we’re interpreting the sentence as a request (which this translation does), then at least a part of the request is to もらう = to have someone else do an action.

I do think the sentence is not completely unambiguous on a grammatical level. But IMHO it’s unlikely that it’s “take an umbrella with you and go, and then もらう something not mentioned” or “hold an umbrella, and then have someone else go away”, etc. And since there’s nothing else after もらってね and no other context at all, there’s no hint that it could be something other than a request.

@Yumari-1

Another confusion point:
「朝から頭が痛かったから病院に行って、医者 に 見てくれた。」
This is weird to me in light of Misa’s (superb IMO) explanation from (https://youtu.be/lp-2PNSANJ8?t=571). She uses a different particle, and seems the sentence would become:
「朝から頭が痛かったから病院に行って、医者 が 見てくれた。」

I agree. に can be used with てくれる but it would mark the recipient, not the doer of the action.

[Yumari-1]

@nekoyama

But IMHO it’s unlikely that it’s “take an umbrella with you and go, and then もらう something not mentioned” or “hold an umbrella, and then have someone else go away”, etc. And since there’s nothing else after もらってね and no other context at all, there’s no hint that it could be something other than a request.

Thanks a bunch for this explanation, it actually cleared up lots of confusion for me. The stacking of constructs to basically from

The speaker (A) asks someone else (B) to もらう the action of 傘を持って行く

can be kind of daunting, but it helps to dig into these kinds of sentences for later stages of learning, at least for me.

@nekoyama

I agree. に can be used with てくれる but it would mark the recipient, not the doer of the action.

Right?! Thanks for confirming my intuition on that one.