Two 'identical' sentences

Hi there.

Okay, my japanese teacher and I were discussing how to say that someone made you laugh. We covered 'warawasete kuremasu' and then I asked about how the grammar would work in the sentence, i.e. who the subject was etc.

She provided me with the following two sentences:

Lily chan ha watashi wo warawasete kuremasu

and

Watashi ha Lily chan ni warawaseraremasu

As a learner, I asked what the difference was between these two. She told me they were both the same. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding there, but clearly as a learner I look at the two and see they are not the same (I acknowledge the meaning may be essentially the same, but as a learned I wish to understand the sentence structure too).

Could someone explain the differences? The first one is as we had discussed, but the second one seems to be passive.

Thanks.

One is causative, the other is passive (and causative). The result (you laugh) is the same.

TexMurphy01 said:

Watashi ha Lily chan ni warawaseraremasu

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"Warau" is a godan verb, so the shortened causative passive form "warawasaremasu" is more commonly used than "warawaseraremasu".

Japanese verb conjugation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The two sentences still have different nuances, so not the same in my book.

Not that I have anything of import to add to the discussion, but warawaseraremasu is hard to say.

Zlarp said:

Not that I have anything of import to add to the discussion, but warawaseraremasu is hard to say.

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And rarely would you ever use it in the real world.