Actually just laughed out loud. If anyone said to me 「写真を撮ってくださらない？」 I think I’d punch them in the face! They would obviously just be trying to look all pretentious 
Not literally of course…
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I’m a bit surprised on the politeness list that ください is listed somewhere in the middle, and even above phrases that I thought were much more polite (like くれませんか). I imagined that ください was like a polite command (akin to “please do such-and-such”), whereas the rest ending in か would be more polite since they are phrased as questions, and so function more like requests (like “would you do such-and-such (for me)?”). If a stranger walked up to me and said, “please take our photo”, even with the “please”, I would definitely find it more rude than if he had phrased it as a question that I had the option of refusing.
Does anyone else have any thoughts?
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I would say ください is very normal - somewhere around the same politeness level as using ます on a verb or putting です on the end of a sentence. You should probably use it with work colleagues and people you don’t know well, but not with friends or high-up superiors. I think I too would place it right in the middle of that politeness scale.
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But would you consider them both requests? For example, as in my previous scenario, would approaching a stranger with 写真をとってください be more polite than 写真をとってくれますか？ Even though the ください is maybe more humble, I have trouble believing that a command would come across as well as a request.
I know I could always just opt to use a more polite request like てもらえますか, but I’d like to actually understand why ください is more polite than some forms of requests, if that is truly the case.
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ください is definitely more polite than くれます. According to my teachers くださる is a more polite version of くれます. And while ください might be in command form, it isn’t perceived as such. Remember that language develops organically and that means it won’t be 100% consistent.
Also overall if you have a request and don’t use ください, at least use the negative masu form: くれませんか or もらえませんか. From what I’ve learnt so far that seems much more common no matter the politeness level.
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Yes of course you wouldn’t approach a stranger and say 写真を撮ってください. The phrases listed above have some nuance in terms of meaning and context but I totally agree with the politeness order.
When approaching a stranger I would say 写真を撮ってもらってもいいですか or 写真を撮ってくれませんか but if you wanted to go into the super mega polite form, you can go as far as to say 写真を撮ってくださいませんか. I wouldn’t use this in an everyday situation though.
Of course you’ll know that ください and くださいませんか have different nuances (ください has more of an imperative nuance where as くださいませんか has more of a non-obligatory one) so it’s just a case of judging the situation.
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@MissDagger @matt_in_mito So we have two different interpretations on the same subject! Interesting. Thanks for your thoughts. I wonder if anyone else would weigh in.
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Go with @matt_in_mito on this. My opinion is that he is more knowledgeable than me, and I would agree that there are better ways to ask someone to take a picture for you than just using ください. I was mostly trying to point out that ください is definitely polite, and not rude or discourteous. There are, of course, more polite ones (and less so) and which to use depends on who you talk to and your station towards them.
Putting ください in the middle of the scale seems right to me from what I’ve learnt so far.
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I think we’re basically in agreement. ください is polite but with a more imperative nuance.
For example, a teacher might ask of their students: 宿題を出してください。It’s expected that the students will get their homework out so ください is used.
Another example, at a restaurant, someone may say to the waiter ビールをください. Of course it is a restaurant so it is expected that the waiter will bring the beer.
But if it’s 写真を撮ってください, it would have to be a photographer or someone doing it in a capacity that they would almost be expected to do it. I might even say that to a waiter in a restaurant because they are expected to make the customer experience good in any way they can, but not to a stranger on the street.
Ok so how about this… if you asked a stranger on the street to take a picture for you and they said ‘oh sorry I’m in a rush,’ you would probably respond by saying ‘no problem’ and simply ask the next person. That is the kind of situation in which the request nuance would come in in Japanese. If you said to someone in a restaurant ‘can I please have a beer’ and they said ‘well… I’m a bit busy at the moment…’ you would be shocked! Hence why in this situation ください would be used.
Have I managed to put across my thoughts concisely?
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@MissDagger @matt_in_mito Thanks for clearing up my misgivings!
I suppose I was just confused why some commands were mixed in with requests, while the other imperative forms were left out. It sort of implied that those specific commands weren’t considered as such (at least to me).
Thanks again for your help!
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I noticed a grammar point for てもらう suggested an alternative of していただきましょう and linked the politeness levels post that’s in this thread. But in that post, I don’t see ただき only ただけ. Is that a spelling mistake in the grammar point or another grammar rule?
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The post above only seems to use いただく in potential form in questions. いただけませんか or もらえませんか are like “Couldn’t I have…”
Whereas いただきましょう is in volitional form, so I’m guessing you saw it in the sentence with (説明して) もらいましょう “let’s have you explain” or something like that?
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Ah, yes it was a ‘let’s have you explain’ type.
Is there a specific page I can study more about this aspect to better predict these things or is it highly case by case?
Thanks!
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The more I see these the more confusing it gets, and the example sentences often don’t appear (to me specifically) to clarify the difference, as I often just see (in my head): “do this for me” in a lot of sentences.
Is there a short way to explain the difference in use of: Do this for me; please do this; do this for someone; got them to do this?
Secondly, the politeness levels are always catching me out, I felt they are so similar but wasn’t sure why some are accepted as an answer and some not during a review. The big list above is very helpful to make that clear, but where is the ‘line-in-the-sand’ between Casual, Polite, Humble? (specifically for Bunpro answers, as I imagine its more flexible and nuanced in real life?)
You might be getting stuck because you’re seeing the English words in your head rather than the concepts. “do verb for me” is a concept rather than “do”, “verb”, “for me” as separate concepts.
Another thing that really helped me is visualizing 1) who’s the subject and 2) the direction of action, like in this video:
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Thanks Fred
I definitely get the basic concept as presented through that video, I learnt these through the genki text book before adding to Bunpro list, and initially the reviews were easy. The problem arises with more complicated sentence structures and what appears to my inexperienced eye is that the English translations seem so similar to the point that they look like they are saying the same thing as another review sentence, but one base grammar point is くれる, and another is もらう (or てくれる/てもらう.
“can you”, “please do” and “do for me” seem to cross over a lot.
Then its a matter of working out where on that long list of versions of くれる/もらう it is to get the correct answer.
I think I know what you mean, but it might help if you posted here some examples where you wanted to guess something that Bunpro marked wrong. (I suggest using the Cram feature to quickly see examples in review format.)
I looked a little closer at the Bunpro sentences. These are patterns that I see…
てください is always a polite command – “Please do something”
てくれる？ is always a positive question, matching the positive verb – “Will you?”, “Could you?” – and there’s always [for me] or implied [for us] (because you give me something with くれる)
てくれない？ is always a negative question, matching the negative verb – “Won’t you …?” instead of “Will you …?”
てもらえない？ is “can I get you to do something?” – maybe this one is tricky, but if you break it down, because “I” am the subject instead of “You”, it’s asking something more like “wouldn’t it be nice if I can get the benefit of receiving this action?”, since the verb is もらう, the focus is on receiving the action (and the missing second half of the sentence is “hint, hint, you could do this for me”). Since it’s hinting (貸してもらえない？) rather than directly stating “could you get this for me” (貸してくれない？) then it’s a little more polite.
ていただけませんか？ is just keigo polite form of てもらえない？
Hopefully that makes a little more sense. 
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Thats great, thanks again Fred.
That’s what I’m slowly picking up on, after just trying to read up on this the last few days. I need to be more careful and precise with who the SUBJECT is for starters, as that will determine which action is happening, and then those finer point in the English of “will you” or “wont you” make a difference in how polite it is in Japanese (positive question or negative question). Then finally the “I get you to do” was tricky, along with the fact it also had multiple answerers (or so it seemed) with the てもらえな vs いていただけませんか.
The list up top helped but also confused things a bit. I think a “theoretical” line between were casual ends and polite starts, then another where polite ands and humble starts would have made things a little clearer (then keigo, “extra-humble” as bunpro puts the hint)
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