We haven’t learned this in class yet. Seems a little wierd. Not sure how useful it’ll be, but it leads into other stuff.

Sources:

Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese

Causative Form

Structure:

Ichidan Verbs - Drop る, add させる

Godan Verbs - change last kana like you are making a negative (go to あ sound except う => わ), then add せる

Exceptions - する => させる, くる => こさせる

Do note that after conjugation, you get an ichidan verb, which can be conjugated and distal’ed accordingly


Uses: An action that someone makes happen. Can also be an action that someone let happens. To make or let someone do something. Hard to tell the difference, but if あげる or くれる (ください) come after, it almost always means “let”.

全部買わせた - “Made/let (someone) buy it all”

全部買わせてくれる, 全部買わせてあげる - “Let someone buy it all”

今週は宿題を休ませてください - “This week, please let me rest from homework”

先生が学生に宿題をたくさんさせる - “That teacher makes students do a lot of homework”

Permission

It is much more common to use てもいい to ask for permission instead of causative form. Sounds like what a “prisoner” would say.

トイレに行ってもいいですか - “Can I go to the bathroom?”

この鉛筆使ってもいいですか - “Can I use this pencil”

Shortened Form

Basically, せる is shortened to す. Tho this is a very rough conjugation, not used too often (IRL anyway).

Structure:

Ichidan Verbs - Drop る, add さす

Godan Verbs - change last kana like you are making a negative (go to あ sound except う => わ), then add す

Exceptions - する => さす, くる => こさす


Examples:

私が彼にまたさした - “I made him do it again”

僕が質問をたくさん聞かしてくれた - “I let (them) ask a lot of questions.




Vocab:

Here are some kanji from the lessons that I wasn’t really familiar with at this point:

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