Potential form with くて ending

Grammar Points
#1

Hello everyone, this is my first thread and I hope you can help me with something. Recently this sentence came up:

みつけられなくてすみませんでした。I’m sorry that I was unable to find it.

Now I understand that the potential form of 見つける is 見つけられる and the negative should be 見つけられない so what is this くて at the end that I stumble upon more and more often. No Japanese grammar resource I have access to mentions this and I just don’t understand what it does.

Is it the just te-form of the of the negative potential? Why can’t I find someone who has explained this in more detail. Why is it needed here?

If it is, is this sentence correct?

窓を開けられてください。As is: Can you open the window?

Thanks in advance for explaining this to me.

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#2

I’m sure @mrnoone can answer your question in more detail, but your guess already was correct. It is the て form of the negative verb, in combination with すみません it means “I am sorry for doing X”:

You can find this grammar here:
https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/106

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#3

Hey and welcome on community forums!

くて is used in a て form of いAdjectives, which is created by replacing い with くて. おいしい -> おいしくて 。
Like you thought, なくて is a て form of negative form - ない. :ok_hand:
By the way, the negative て form of い adjective would be: おいしくなくて。(:+1:)

**Literal translation of なくてwould be “not … and”. Since we also have a potential here, it will be something like “not able to/cannot … and”.

As @Anthropos888 linked, in this case, it is also used together with てすみません grammar point, literally meaning:
I was not able to find it and I am sorry.

Why is it used here? Because we want to say sorry, the てすみません must be used, however we are sorry for “not doing something” instead of “doing something” the negative て form of a verb is needed. The normal て form would be used when we are sorry for doing something.

If it is, is this sentence correct?
窓を開けられてください。As is: Can you open the window?

This sentence is a bit unnatural.
The proper one would be: 窓を開けてください . 窓を開けてくれませんか？窓を開けてもらえる？ (you can notice the potential form of もらう, but not 開けられてください itself), in casual 窓開けられる？can also be used.

Also remember, Japanese potential form by itself(これが食べられる？etc) is not often used to ask for permission(てもいい is used instead) or requestiong something(you can see it used it this way though), use てくれる・てくれない/てもらえる・てもらえない/てください・ていただけませんか(another potential form ) etc).

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#4

Thank you all for explaining it to me. I hope you have a nice day.

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#5

Not a problem and thanks, you too :grinning:

#6

This one, and I think the previous one ( 私（わたし）の好（す）きな映画（えいが）が 見（み）られたら いいね。) use grammar points that if you are following the Genki paths it is easy you haven’t seen yet. I suggest to change it to appear later in the review cycle.

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#7

Hey :grin:

Could you tell me in which grammar point is this sentence?

#8

Potential.

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#9

Got to the sentence on the first post on this thread. I seriously think it should not be on potential form reviews, but on the grammar point @Anthropos888 linked. It is superconfusing for people following book paths.