Hey all, I’m doing the N5 vocab right now, and one of the example sentences for 会うconfused me:
駅で父に会う。
Why is the に particle used here? My first thought was to use the を particle, as your father is the “object” your meeting?
I generally understand the difference of use between these 2 particles, but maybe I don’t understand it as well as I thought. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I just had a discussion about this today. so if you’re doing something WITH someone, you will use に with the person in question.
私は赤ちゃんにいろいろ食べ物を食べてがほしい。
I want the baby to eat a variety of foods.
The example sentence with your answer is
I will meet my father at the station.
the father is someone that you are doing something with.
There is probably a better way to explain it, or this isn’t always accurate, but it is how I read it as.
Without getting too technical, を is more ‘to do to something’. ‘meeting’ is not something you do to your dad, it’s something you do by yourself. Here, your dad is the destination of the action, where 会う means ‘to meet’. So ‘I met’ (with my dad), or (with dad as the goal/destination).
と is used for ‘with’ as in ‘both people doing the same action’.
に is used when you do something by yourself, or the focus is on your own action.
Adding to what @Asher said, since it may or may not be obvious from his explanation (which are always excellent), is that に also has the nuance of “meeting by chance”, while with と all parties are involved in the action. Just like “with” in English. At least that’s the case with the verb 会う.
Another difference is that に会う implies meeting people at their location, while と会う implies all parties meeting at a specified location.
That said, I could be wrong about this, in which case Asher (or someone else) can correct me.
HTH!
Was going to add something similar. You’re not wrong at all, I think really the only difference in many cases is the nuance, and several particles can be used correctly.
父に会う - You met your dad (focus on your action).
父と会う - You and your dad met (both people doing the same action).
家族で会う - You met somebody with your family.
Note that the last one doesn’t have 父, as で is only used for ‘with’ when the word that comes before it is a group that the speaker is a part of. 父 is not a group that the speaker is a part of, it is one person.
It can come across this way, or it can come across simply that 父 simply had no control over it. That means it’s either a coincidence, it was unplanned, or that the only person that planned it was the doer. 父 himself is nothing more than the destination. You’d need other context to really tell which of these meanings is true.
Specifically for 会う, there are several different kanji that are all used relatively frequently that have slightly different meanings. 合う, 遭う, 遇う, 逢う. However, they all just mean ‘to come together’, either physically or metaphorically/rhythmically, etc.
Would this have more of a meaning that you met someone through your family, or no?
Not particularly, just implies that you did the action as a group. If it was through your family, in most cases it would be explicitly started.