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To give (from the point of view To receive To give (from the point of
of a speaker) view of a giver)
Person-receiver (or an object Person-giver + に/から Person-giverは+me/usに
considered as an animate one) + +objectを+ もらう +objectを+くれる
に+object を+ あげる
Sphere of usage: Sphere of usage: Sphere of usage:
From the first person to the From the second and 3 person From the second and third
second and third; to anyone person to the first person
From the third person to the もらう is never used with the
third person 1st person pronouns as an
actor (marked with に)
私に日本語を教えてもらっ
た×
For example: For example: For example:
However, this table is not a complete guide how to use Japanese verbs of giving and
receiving. First, we need to note, that in Japanese there is no such grammatical category as ,person’.
Instead of this category, the Japanese use the concept of inner and outer circles of connections
(‘soto-uchi’ concept). ‘Uchi’ is our inner circle of connections, ‘me and my family, closest friends, a
place where I work’, ‘us’. On the other hand, ‘soto’ is an outer circle, ‘not us’. There are a lot of
books published on this topic, and we would like to recommend you to read a chapter from ‘The
Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture’ by Davies Roger J., Ikeno Osamu,
2002.
As for the connections of the grammar and the concept, we have to replace our ‘person’
understanding of grammatical connection to the ‘perception in circles’.
1) As for ‘ageru’, this verb is used to mark a relation of giving from ‘uchi’ to ‘soto’, inside
‘soto’ and from ‘me’ inside ‘uchi’:
Also, ‘ageru’ has a synonym which describes an action forwarded from us to someone lower
in position -- ‘yaru’ (usually used when speaking about younger siblings or animals and plants, but
somehow can be used to show disrespect).
However, it is considered impolite to use this verb, as it sounds like we are waiting for some
appreciation for our actions. Let’s not use it too much when we speak about our own actions.
2) As for ‘morau’, this verb means any kind of receiving apart from receiving from ‘me’ (we
have to change the grammatical structure to ‘ageru’ pattern if we want to focuse on the fact that
someone received something from ‘me’). The polite (humble) synonym for ‘morau’ is ‘itadaku’.
3) Finally, ‘kureru’ is a verb to describe actions of giving, but forwarded to ‘me’ and ‘uchi’ or
to ‘me’ inside ‘uchi’:
Unlike the verbs ‘ageru’ and ‘morau’, ‘kureru’ does not have a ‘humble’ synonym, but does
have a one from the ‘respectful speech’ (jp. 尊敬語, sonkeigo) -- ‘kudasaru’.
Nominative case marker が
Since in the most Indo-European languages the topic is hardly ever marked morphologically
(although the articles in English, French, etc. are used to mark new/old information as well), we
need to understand, that the concept of the topic has nothing to do with a syntactic structure of a
sentence and the topic marker は can actually mark any part of it. The fastest way to learn how to
tell the topic apart from the subject is to study the most common cases of using は and が.
sentence: the simplest case is [Subjectが P r e d i c a t e ]. The most common cases are:
4) An object in phrases with a verb in the desiderative form (-たい form) or in the potential
form:
fish).
す is translated as ‘The book is on the table’ because in this sentence ‘the book’ is marked
as a topic. That means, that we are talking about a particular book (in other words, it is not
just a sentence about the current state of affairs, but a statement about a particular thing
which a conversation partner is interested in).
The subject marked with a nominative case does not equal the topic marked with は.
2. Topic marker は
When we use は to mark our subject, it means, that at the same time it is also a topic
of the sentence. Topic is information in the sentence, which is already known from the context or
was mentioned before (see the example 6 of the previous paragraph). In other words, new
(=important) information is located in the second part of the sentence (=in the predicate).
Also, は particle can be attached to subordinate parts of the sentence, so these parts
become a topic. For the translation we can use such patterns as ‘As for...’or ‘What is about...’
This way of using は particle works not only inside one sentence, but more inside the whole
text (topic is not a category applicable to a syntactic structure of a sentence).
2) In negations:
田中さんは富士山に登ったことはありません。ー (As for) Mr. Tanaka has never climbed
Mount Fuji.
ある いる
1. 「箱の中に、何がありますか。」– 1. 「きょうしつはだれがいますか。」–「
「サントスさんはにほんごがじょうずですね。」 ー
yet.