Hi guys, I'm looking to add a sentence that deals with the 'replace う with あせる for the causative, "make someone do X".' grammar but I can't find any examples so I've made this up along with an answer:

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バースに行かなかったそして待たせた。

Bus (to) didn't come and-so, made to wait.

The bus didn't come so I was forced to wait.

For う verbs replace う with あせる for the causative, "make someone do X". This becomes a る verb.

eg. 聞く (きく) → 聞かせる (きかせる) (to make someone listen)

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Something seems wrong to me... and should I have put a comma on one of the sides of 'そして'?

Thanks.

You can't use soshite to join two verbs in a sentence like that. Use the て form instead or から. Also your English says 'come' and your Japanese says 'go'.

Also 待たせる means "make wait", not "be made to wait". In the above sentence, I think you want the causitive passive

Ooh yeah. Thanks a lot.

I knew 'iku' didn't seem right...

resolve Wrote:Also 待たせる means "make wait", not "be made to wait". In the above sentence, I think you want the causitive passive

Hm, I was sort of confused with this. I wasn't sure what type of "made" I was dealing with.

You don't think you could give me an example あせる sentence could you?

先生が学生に宿題をたくさんさせた
せん・せい が がく・せい に しゅく・だい を たくさん させた
Teacher made students do lots of homework


Don't know if you already have this, it's from Tae Kim.

Nah that's perfect mate. I skimmed the site to see if I could find the right section but couldn't.

Thanks.

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:バースに行かなかったそして待たせた。

In addition to resolve's comments, there are some basic things wrong with the above which you need to get right before you start tackling something difficult like the causative and causative passive.

Firstly, bus is バス. バース is quite different I believe.

Secondly, you need to get the particles right. バスに行かなかった means "didn't go to the bus". If you want to say the bus didn't come, you say バスはこなかった. In sentences with 行く and 来る, に always marks the destination and never the entity that's coming or going.

Going on to the causative stuff... I'm pretty sure that an inanimate object like a bus can't be the cause. Someone pick me up on this if I'm wrong but I believe that the cause has to be a person. You can't say that the bus made you wait because the bus didn't deliberately do that.

A good example of everyday use of the causative is when you're late meeting someone, you say

お待たせしました。

Or, if you're friends with the person, you could even abbreviate it to お待たせ. This means "I'm sorry I made you wait". The お in front is unique to this situation, don't put it in front of other verbs.

When you want to say that someone made you do something, it's best to use the causative passive. This is because you're the subject of the sentence but you're not the one being the cause, therefore it's more natural using a passive construction rather than an active one. i.e. you say "I was made to do something by someone else" instead of "Someone made me do something."

Additionally, the Japanese often use the passive to illustrate that they have suffered as a consequence of the actions of something else e.g. 雨に降られた. "I was rained on." (Please feel sorry for me). 私は先生にしかられた. "I was told off by the teacher." etc. Therefore, in situations where you've been made to do something, it's often the case that you're not happy about it and the passive construction becomes even more appropriate.

A lot of people were made redundant at my company and when talking about it, I say

私の会社の中で80人の人が辞めさせられた。　80 people were made redundant in my company.

This literally means that they were made to quit their job. Notice that the person who made them redundant isn't mentioned.

Till now, I've only talked about situations where the causative means "someone made someone else do something". This may sound crazy, but it can also mean "someone let someone else do something". In English, these sound like utterly different situations and it seems nuts that the grammar or vocabulary doesn't change in Japanese. However, the causative form is exactly that, the causative. It only communicates something as the cause of something else. By itself, the grammar construct does not specify whether the causer is an enforcer or a permission giver. In context though, it's usually obvious. There's no way that 80 people were "allowed" to quit their jobs, they must have been forced. Similarly,

お父さんは友達と一緒に旅行に行かせてくれた。 My dad allowed me to go on a trip with friends.

It's unlikely that dad forced his child to go on a trip with friends. Plus, the causative has been combined with the ～てくれた construct. Do you know that one? The causative is often combined with ～てあげる、～てくれる and ～てもらう and in these situations it always means "allowed" rather than "forced".

Wow, I've really rambled on. Hope it helped.

so to say what he wanted to say would this be ok?

バスが来なかったから、待たされた。
バスが来なかったから、待たせられた

more examples for "made to wait" here:
http://jisho.org/sentences?jap=&eng=made+to+wait

So is there a difference between 待たす　and 待たせる

to parse this sentence a little more, is は　or が　better?

Since we are talking about a specific bus I was thinking が, but I'm guessing either is ok in this case.

and to further complicate the sentence,
バスが来なかったせいで、待たされた。

johnzep Wrote:so to say what he wanted to say would this be ok?

バスが来なかったから、待たされた。
バスが来なかったから、待たせられた

As I mentioned before, I think you have to be careful here because the bus is a non-volitional entity. You can't say that the bus made you wait because the bus didn't do anything on purpose. However, it may be ok because the sentence has been split in two. The bus didn't come, so I was made to wait (by somebody unmentioned and not by the bus). I still wouldn't say it though.

There's a pretty good section in Makino and Tsutsui's dictionary of basic Japanese grammar which goes through everything. Virtua_Leaf: If you want good example sentences that illustrate grammar points then I definitely recommend this dictionary. I don't know where Tae Kim is getting his sentences from. Also, the link that johnzep provided uses sentences from the Tanaka Corpus which may feature sentences translated from English rather than natural Japanese ones.

In general, I'd stick with the standard causative construction (食べさせる、行かせる、待たせる etc.) instead of thinking about the alternative construction you mentioned (食べさす、行かす、待たすetc.) According to the dictionary, this alternative construction is used for more direct causation. eg. 食べさす means to feed someone but 食べさせる means to make or let someone eat.

As for what Virtua_Leaf was trying to say, I think that the most natural way would be to not use the causative at all.

バスはこなかったから、ずっと待っていた。 The bus didn't come so I was waiting for ages.

I think your choice of が is less natural because I don't think we're talking about a specific bus. The important element of the clause is that it didn't come. It could be any bus. Therefore the emphasis is on the verb rather than the subject so は is more appropriate I think.

EDIT: corrected English grammar haha!

wrightak Wrote:Wow, I've really rambled on. Hope it helped.

Yes it did. I've taken those sentences as well.

And thanks to everyone else as well. These little eye-opening moments really help.

I'm learning about the 「しまう」 (unintended actions) grammar. The casual version of 「～てしまう」, I've learnt, is 「～ちゃう」. Yet, in the example sentence, they don't seem to be used in an unintentional/oops way:

もう帰っちゃっていい？- Is it OK if I went home already?
みんな、どっか行っちゃったよ。- Everybody went off somewhere.
そろそろ遅くなっちゃうよ。- It'll gradually become late, you know.

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/unintended.html

Can someone explain this?

any sentence with ~してしまう　you can change to ～ちゃう

I think I her it most in the case where ～してしまった　becomes ~ちゃった

I often hear it used with 食べてしまった→食べちゃった

As in "Where's the cake???"...."食べちゃった?　(I ate it)

or

食べ過ぎて太ってしまった→食べ過ぎて太っちゃった。
I ate too much and (unintentionally) got fat.

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:they don't seem to be used in an unintentional/oops way:

もう帰っちゃっていい？- Is it OK if I went home already?
みんな、どっか行っちゃったよ。- Everybody went off somewhere.
そろそろ遅くなっちゃうよ。- It'll gradually become late, you know.

I think the last sentence has a bit of the unintentional nuance to it.

In addition to the unintentional meaning, the more basic meaning is "to do something and finish it" / "to do something completely"

fwiw It's possible, I believe, for causative form to have an inanimate 'causer'. For e.g. それは大変難しい問題で、　私はずいぶん考えさせられた。　(causative passive)

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:I'm learning about the 「しまう」 (unintended actions) grammar. The casual version of 「～てしまう」, I've learnt, is 「～ちゃう」. Yet, in the example sentence, they don't seem to be used in an unintentional/oops way:

もう帰っちゃっていい？- Is it OK if I went home already?
みんな、どっか行っちゃったよ。- Everybody went off somewhere.
そろそろ遅くなっちゃうよ。- It'll gradually become late, you know.

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/unintended.html

Can someone explain this?

I disagree with the explanations given in the link you gave. I think the primary meaning of the ～てしまう construction is not to illustrate "unintended actions". I think the primary meaning is what is put at the end of the discussion on that webpage. I like to think of this construction as a "trapdoor" grammar point. Something happens and you can't go back.

The examples you gave above all look great. The meaning that the ～ちゃった adds to the sentence is a feeling of being unable to reverse the situation. i.e.

Is it OK if I went home (and not come back thereby potentially leaving you in a pickle)
Everybody went off somewhere (and now we're screwed because we can't reverse the situation and find them)
It'll gradually become late, you know (and once it gets later you can't turn the clock back and give yourself more time)

It's hard to describe but you get the feeling. 食べちゃった is common - I ate it (and it's done now and I can't regurgitate it and reverse the situation) 太っちゃった - I've put on weight (and I can't lose it again).

Think of falling through a trapdoor. Before you do, you haven't eaten the cake, you haven't gone home, it hasn't gotten late. After you fall through the trap door, all these things have happened and they can't be reversed.

I'd highly recommend getting some decent text books rather than using websites. I used Japanese for College People, which was pretty good. There's loads of recommendations on the forum.

Thora Wrote:fwiw It's possible, I believe, for causative form to have an inanimate 'causer'. For e.g. それは大変難しい問題で、　私はずいぶん考えさせられた。　(causative passive)

Yeah, I'm not absolutely certain. When I looked through all of the examples given in text books for the causative, I didn't find any that had inanimate causers. Where did you get the above sentence?

More importantly, what's the context? It seems to me that the causer is the person being spoken to. The それ in the sentence is what tells me so. I'd translate it as:

"That's a really hard problem that you brought up and I've been forced to think long and hard about it. "

The reason I inserted "you brought up" is because the それ indicates that the problem is either one that the listener mentioned earlier or it's the listener's problem. For the former, the act of mentioning the problem caused the speaker to think about it. For the latter, the possession of the problem caused the speaker to think about it. In either case, it can be argued that the person and not the actual problem was the "causer".

Maybe I'm looking into this too much and maybe you could argue that the bus from earlier was driven by a human! Maybe the causer can be anything but I don't think the sentence you quoted demonstrates it.

wrightak Wrote:I like to think of this construction as a "trapdoor" grammar point. Something happens and you can't go back.

That was a brilliant explanation, wrightak. It explained the ones I was confused with and fits in perfectly with the ones I'd learnt and was happy with already.

I'll definitely use the "trapdoor" idea for this grammar from now on.

wrightak Wrote:I disagree with the explanations given in the link you gave. I think the primary meaning of the ～てしまう construction is not to illustrate "unintended actions". I think the primary meaning is what is put at the end of the discussion on that webpage. I like to think of this construction as a "trapdoor" grammar point. Something happens and you can't go back.

I'll second that... there's a bit of a different nuance to ～しまう・～ちゃう than just "I did something unintentionally." I look at it as almost a twinge of regret or lament (I'm not sure if that's the best way to put it in English or not...) at something that's been done or has happened.

Virtua_leaf --> another common one is 言っちゃう. You hear it a lot during gossip fest, especially when someone says something they know is very frank/bold.

wrightak Wrote:

Thora Wrote:fwiw It's possible, I believe, for causative form to have an inanimate 'causer'. For e.g. それは大変難しい問題で、　私はずいぶん考えさせられた。　(causative passive)

Yeah, I'm not absolutely certain. When I looked through all of the examples given in text books for the causative, I didn't find any that had inanimate causers. Where did you get the above sentence? More importantly, what's the context? It seems to me that the causer is the person being spoken to. [...] Maybe the causer can be anything but I don't think the sentence you quoted demonstrates it.

I wasn't positive either, but my gut tells me that it's OK to say "That exam really made me think" without it having to mean "The teacher really made me think by setting such a tough exam." Or, a newspaper puzzle could make you concentrate without the newspaper editors needing to be the unspoken causers. Best to check with a native speaker.

The sentence is solid. It's from an old univ textbook by Prof Matsuo Soga. (btw sounds like you might have liked his style - he was apparently a bit of a pioneer in getting students to creatively apply grammar, not just passive recognition). But I see your point that the sentence doesn't answer our question.

Dictionary of BJG on causative: "1. The idea that *someone/something* (=causer) causes or allows someone/something..." (388). That may be getting us a bit closer.

Thora Wrote:I wasn't positive either, but my gut tells me that it's OK

It's funny you should say that because I was thinking about this and I had convinced myself of the opposite! The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense that the causer is taking a conscious action. The causer allows or enforces something quite deliberately, therefore it must be animate. Or so I thought. Now I've read your post, I'm having to think again!

Like you said, I think the only solution is to ask a native speaker but I think it will be necessary to ask a Japanese teacher. I can just imagine the blank look my friends will give me if I ask them.

Quote:It's from an old univ textbook by Prof Matsuo Soga. (btw sounds like you might have liked his style - he was apparently a bit of a pioneer in getting students to creatively apply grammar, not just passive recognition).

I don't know what I said to make you think this but you're absolutely right. I'm a huge believer in applying the grammar you learn. I think the biggest failure of Japanese learners (including myself) is that we concentrate too much on understanding rather than producing. Everyone on this forum has read RTK in order to learn the writing of kanji but how many people regularly write in Japanese (preferably with a pen)? Not as many as there should be I think.

Quote:Dictionary of BJG on causative: "1. The idea that *someone/something* (=causer) causes or allows someone/something..." (388). That may be getting us a bit closer.

I looked it up as well but somehow I missed that. It looks like you're right...

Quote:バスが来なかったせいで、待たされた。

I ran this sentence by a Japanese person, and asked about は and が and was told が was better. she said the rest was ok. I didn't didn't ask about animate vs. inanimate though. But she didn't seem to have a problem with it.

Looks like I'm wrong twice then!

Thanks for checking up on it and letting me know. I don't understand why が is better. I'll have to investigate...