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Explanation on some forms of the verb.

goggles

Banyai! Banyai!
21 Apr 2004
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Ano, I kindly ask for some explanations for these. Also if you can offer sentence examples, I'd really appreciate that ^_^.

nakereba for e.g. minakereba - if you don't look (?)
reba for e.g. mireba - if you look (?)
takereba for e.g. mitakereba - (i've never heard this one before)

naraba for e.g. shizuka naraba - if it is quiet, then... (?)

saseru for e.g. piano no renshyuu wo saseru - I will do piano practice (?)
(I looked up saseru and it meant "to make (someone) do", can it also mean to make oneself do something?)

And is sasete just the "te" form of saseru? I've heard stuff like "sasete morau" and "sasete itadakimasu". I guess I know what they mean and when to use but I refrain to use them because I don't enough information about these forms hence I feel like I have no control over my Japanese.

It's been nagging me for a while and I want to get to the bottom of it.
 
ok i'll try and explain. but there's no doubt gonna be ppl correcting me... :p

nakereba for e.g. minakereba - if you don't look
yes that's right, however minakattara is more common for "if you don't look". nakereba is a little more formal sounding, although is often used in "must", e.g. minakereba naranai - (you) must look

reba for e.g. mireba - if you look
again right, but mitara is more common.

takereba for e.g. mitakereba - (i've never heard this one before)
umm, you've probably never heard it before because it's wrong:) what are you trying to say? i think you're just trying to combine the above two forms, which you can't do.

naraba for e.g. shizuka naraba - if it is quiet, then...
hmm. again shizuka dattara is more common. shizuka naraba is ok (i think). often naraba is shortened to just nara, and i myself often use nara with "with" verbs. e.g. tabetai nara - if you want to eat it.
you could also use tabetakattara instead of tabetai nara.

saseru for e.g. piano no renshyuu wo saseru - I will do piano practice (?)
(I looked up saseru and it meant "to make (someone) do", can it also mean to make oneself do something?)
hmm, yes, but... saseru mean to make someone do something, so it would be like:
watashi wa kare ni piano no renshuu wo saseta - I made him do his piano practice.
piano no renshuu wo saserareta - I was made to do my piano practice.

yes sasete is the te form of saseru. we're getting into some complicated and perhaps unnecessary grammar here, so let's stop while we're ahead (or before i make too many mistakes).
 
nakereba for e.g. minakereba - if you don't look
yes that's right, however minakattara is more common for "if you don't look". nakereba is a little more formal sounding, although is often used in "must", e.g. minakereba naranai - (you) must look

reba for e.g. mireba - if you look
again right, but mitara is more common.
It's not really a matter of commonality, these two verb forms have different nuances and are used in different ways. The -reba form (often contracted to -rya in casual speech) has more of a connotation of "if (and only if) you do X, then Y will naturally happen". For example, "Mireba wakaru" -- if you see it/look at it, you'll understand. Seeing it is a necessary condition to understanding, which will definitely take place if you see it. "Mitara wakaru", while a completely possible utterance, doesn't tie the two events together so tightly. This is why in some constructions (like the "-nakereba naranai" construction you mention, also expressions with 'sae', or "if only") don't work with the -tara form.

This close connection between the -reba clause and what follows is especially clear when the condition is negative. "Minakereba (minakya) wakaranai deshou" means something like, "Unless (you) see it, you probably won't understand." "Minakattara" just wouldn't really work like that here.

okaeri_man said:
takereba for e.g. mitakereba - (i've never heard this one before) umm, you've probably never heard it before because it's wrong:) what are you trying to say? i think you're just trying to combine the above two forms, which you can't do.
You can't combine the two forms you mention (because they're just the affirmative and negative of the same form), but you can certainly combine the "-tai" (desire) form with the conditional (-(ke)reba) form, which is exactly what this is.

The "-tai" form can be made into a conditional the same way any "-i adjective" can, because structurally that's what it is.

takai (it's expensive) -> takakereba (if it's expensive)
ikitai ({I} want to go) -> ikitakereba (if [you/he/she] wants to go)

okaeri_man said:
naraba for e.g. shizuka naraba - if it is quiet, then...
hmm. again shizuka dattara is more common. shizuka naraba is ok (i think). often naraba is shortened to just nara, and i myself often use nara with "with" verbs. e.g. tabetai nara - if you want to eat it.
you could also use tabetakattara instead of tabetai nara.
The difference between "nara" and "naraba" is simply a matter of formality, I believe ("naraba" sounds very formal or written-style), but "tabetakattara" and "tabetai nara" don't really mean the same thing. The former can be used as a pure hypothetical "If you want to eat (it)..." where as the latter, which actually comes from "tabetai (no) nara", means "Well, if it's that you want to eat (it)." -- i.e. if you said it to a person who wasn't saying or giving obvious signs that they wanted to eat something, their reaction would probably be, "Why are you assuming that I want to eat it?"

okaeri_man said:
yes sasete is the te form of saseru. we're getting into some complicated and perhaps unnecessary grammar here, so let's stop while we're ahead (or before i make too many mistakes).
I wouldn't really consider any of the above "unnecessary", as they're all basically forms that you'll learn in the first few years of your average Japanese class. It's important to get all these verb forms down, because this is the kind of stuff that no dictionary is going to help you with.

goggles said:
And is sasete just the "te" form of saseru? I've heard stuff like "sasete morau" and "sasete itadakimasu". I guess I know what they mean and when to use but I refrain to use them because I don't enough information about these forms hence I feel like I have no control over my Japanese.
These are kind of interesting constructions. Structurally, they're not too difficult, I suppose. If you can parse something like, for example "Atarashii kuruma o katte moratta", then you can parse these combinations because they follow the same pattern of gerund (-te form) + verb of receiving.

Semantically, though, what's going on here is kind of interesting because in Japanese, expressions like these are used very often, certainly more so than in English.

To get across the basic meaning here in English, I guess you could say that it means something like "I'll take the liberty of doing (X)". It's a way of being polite/showing deference by implying that you recognize what you're doing might impose upon them. As such, something like "Go-renraku sasete itadakimasu" really is describing the same action as simply "go-renraku shimasu", but the former suggests that you feel as if you're receiving a favor from the other person just by being "allowed" to contact him/her, and thus sounds more deferential.

(Edited for clarity and better examples, and to fix some nasty formatting. Hmm, that's weird... if you try to respond multiple times to the same thread it combines your posts into one automatically.)
 
jt_ said:
Hmm, that's weird... if you try to respond multiple times to the same thread it combines your posts into one automatically.
Yup. But only within a certain time frame.

Personally I find it slightly annoying and it's caused confusion at least once when I replied, quoting, to two different people in the same thread ...
 
PaulTB said:
Yup. But only within a certain time frame.

Personally I find it slightly annoying and it's caused confusion at least once when I replied, quoting, to two different people in the same thread ...

Yeah, I was kind of hoping to keep the two posts separate since they were replies to two different people on two different subjects that didn't really have anything to do with each other, but oh well.

By the way, if you (or anyone else) have any corrections/additions to what I wrote above, I'd be interested in hearing them (and I'm sure the original poster would, too). I'm starting to get a little worried because I've been replying to a lot of these grammar posts, and very few people have been calling me out for any mistakes or oversights -- and I know that it can't be because there aren't any, right?

Or maybe it's just that my posts have been too long/confusing/nonsensical for people to bother with... 😄
 
jt_ said:
Yeah, I was kind of hoping to keep the two posts separate since they were replies to two different people on two different subjects that didn't really have anything to do with each other, but oh well.
The best you can do is stick a
======================================================
between the two.
jt_ said:
By the way, if you (or anyone else) have any corrections/additions to what I wrote above, [...] r maybe it's just that my posts have been too long/confusing/nonsensical for people to bother with...
Long, maybe.

To paraphrase a well known saying "Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing, I could watch it all day." :D

When posts get really long / detailed I have a tendency to think "Get a text book!" or "Post a link!" or even "Stick it on a webpage it'll last longer."
 
Holy crap! (I don't mean the explanations were crap). Mega thanks for the explanations! Awesome!

As for mitakereba, it might have made more sense if i typed it as mita kereba? Or maybe that's wrong too T_T

If the examples were strange (like mitakereba), don't worry, these examples were based on a really old book. Though I'm guessing what's in the book is still relevant to today but I guess there are some nuances that are redundant.

Thanks again! ^_^
 
goggles said:
Holy crap! (I don't mean the explanations were crap). Mega thanks for the explanations! Awesome!

As for mitakereba, it might have made more sense if i typed it as mita kereba? Or maybe that's wrong too T_T

If the examples were strange (like mitakereba), don't worry, these examples were based on a really old book. Though I'm guessing what's in the book is still relevant to today but I guess there are some nuances that are redundant.

Thanks again! ^_^

It isn't strange, and there's nothing wrong with the way you typed it. I think that okaeri_man just had a brain freeze (it happens to the even the best of us) and didn't realize that it was the conditional of the -tai form. There's nothing archaic or "redundant" about the examples you gave.

Just out of curiosity, what book is this that you're using?
 
brain freeze... hmm, icy.

yeah it's clearly the conditional of the -tai form as jt_ said... but i can't recall having heard it before. at least i'm learning to put warnings before trying to help people now :D
 
The book is called Yasashii Nihongo. It was published in 1980 :O The book actually teaches Chinese people to learn Japanese so I have to do the guess work myself (I can't read Chinese). It sounds stupid to learn from it I know, but there are interesting things in there that tickle my fancy.

As for redundant, I knew I should of used another word besides that but I had already typed it and was too lazy to change it lol.
 
Concerning "saseru/sasete"
jt_ said:
As such, something like "Go-renraku sasete itadakimasu" really is describing the same action as simply "go-renraku shimasu", but the former suggests that you feel as if you're receiving a favor from the other person just by being "allowed" to contact him/her, and thus sounds more deferential.
Sorry to pull up an old post here.
So "saseru", while meaning "make someone do something", can also mean "allow, let me" do something?
Example: Semete, shimpai dake wa sasete.
"At the least, allow me to worry."
(though I'm not sure what 'dake' means here - though I guess 'only' as in 'only to worry') Can anyone verify this usage of saseru? :?
 
Fuumei said:
Concerning "saseru/sasete"
Sorry to pull up an old post here.
So "saseru", while meaning "make someone do something", can also mean "allow, let me" do something?
Example: Semete, shimpai dake wa sasete.
"At the least, allow me to worry."
(though I'm not sure what 'dake' means here - though I guess 'only' as in 'only to worry') Can anyone verify this usage of saseru? :?
Yes, you got it right! 👍
 
saseru is to have someone do something, but it can also mean to allow them to do it. Use of the ~てくれる/あげる/もらう forms clarifies the exact situation. saserareru is to force someone to do something (against their will).
 
I think it's more accurate to say that (s)aserareru is for the experiencer to be forced to do something beyond their will.
 
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