Verbs of giving and receiving(getting ) an introduction

Verbs of giving and receiving/getting - an introduction

This week in lessons Day 41 to Day 43, we study some aspects of verbs related to giving and receiving. As often new students struggle with these concepts and their differences, we wanted to share some important points before going into the daily lessons.

1. Go and Come

Before we start on giving/receiving/getting it is important to discuss the verbs To go/come「いきます/きます」. Both verbs express the movement of the subject noun. The major difference is obviously the directionality. 

「きます」 should be some movement towards the speaker, or someone else’s movement to the listener. There is a very important difference between Japanese and English: the speaker’s movement to the listener is expressed by 「いきます」, not 「きます」, e.g.「えきにつきました。いまいきますから、もうちょっ とまってください」

In any case, 「きます」 can be characterized “inward”, while 「いきます」is used as neutral as well as “outward”. In「たなかさんは おきなわへ いきました」, 「たなかさん」’s movement is irrelevant to where the speaker or the hearer is.

2. Verbs of Giving

In Japanese, this distinction also exists for the verbs of giving. As you can see, giving is the movement of the object nouns. 「あげます」, which we studied a few weeks ago, is a verb used in “outward” and neutral situations, while another verb 「くれます」 is a verb for “inward” use. :(わた しは)(あなたに)X を「あげます」, while (あなたは) (わたしに) X を「くれます」. 「たなかさんは やまださんに チョコレートを あげました」 is an example of the neutral ones.

Some more comments are necessary: 

1) The speaker’s family member or friends etc. are assumed to be an inner member so that 「おとうとは やまださんに プレゼントをあげました/やまださんは おと うとに プレゼントをくれました」 is usual verb selection. More generally, which one of the two verbs is selected in “N1 giving something to N2” depends on the relation of the two persons to the speaker. When N1 is nearer than N2, that is, the moving is assumed to be “outward”, then 「あげる」is selected and vice-versa. 

For example, if 「たなかさん」is a good friend and 「すずきさん」is only a  classmate, 「たなかさんはすずきさんに X をあげました」” outward” is used, while 「すずきさんはたなかさんに X をくれ ました」” inward” is used. 

Similarly, N1 or N2 can be the listener's inner member, not the speaker’s. This explanation may make you worry, but when you are faced with the actual situations, it is often very clear which one of the two persons is the inner and which one is the outer. 

However, in our course, as the first step of the study, the speaker (or the speaker’s family) is involved in almost all the examples we show you. That is, either N1 or N2 is the speaker in most cases. Then when the speaker is N1 「あげ る」is used, while when N2 is the speaker, 「くれる」 is used.

2) In the Japanese language, even if the speaker is involved in the action etc. in the sentence, 「わたし」 rarely appears. Rather, the basic principle is 「わたし」 should be omitted whenever possible. Therefore, when 「あげます」 is used, that usually denotes “the speaker giving to someone else” such as 「ほしのさんに おみやげを あげました」”I gave a souvenir to Hoshino-san”.  Similarly, when 「くれます」 is used, it implies “someone giving something to me” like 「みなみさんが このチョコレー トを くれました」” Minami-san gave this chocolate to me.”

3) Verbs of Receiving or Getting

It may be clear that “A gave B something” = “B received/got something from A. Then the event or the fact expressed is the same. The difference lies from whose point of view the event is stated, the giver or the receiver. However, there is a strong restriction on the use of 「もらいます」, that is, 「もらいます」is basically used only for “inward” movement so that 「たなかさんがチョコレートをくれました」=「たなかさんにチョ コレートをもらいました」, but for 「すずきさんにおみやげをあげました」, there is no corresponding 「もらいます」 sentence. ( 「もらいます」 can be used for neutral situations as well. But in our course we do not study that type of usage since it looks too complicated to beginners).

Thus, in 「くれます」sentences the speaker appears as the indirect object or the dative noun, while in 「もらいます」sentences the speaker appears as the subject. This implies it is much easier to use 「もらいま す」 than 「くれます」 since it is often the case that the speaker himself/herself plays a central role in the discourse and tends to appear as the subject.

4) Giving and Receiving/Getting Benefits

Finally, we should introduce the extension of the movement of things. That is the movement of the benefits, for example, 「たかはしさんは おいしいケーキをつくってくれました」” Takahashi-san made me a delicious cake.”. In this sentence, that Takahashi-san made a cake that was beneficial to the speaker, in that sense, it can be said Takahashi-san gave me some benefit. 

When someone’s action is beneficial to someone, especially to the speaker, this construction is widely observed. There are three kinds of these constructions, namely, 「V てあげます」, 「V てくれます」, 「V てもらいます」are used corresponding to 「あげます/くれます/ もらいます」 when the action expressed by the verb is beneficial to someone. Among these, 「V てあげま す」 is far less common since the benefit goes to someone else from the speaker (“outward” movement). 

That means the speaker shows his/her own action as beneficial to someone else and that often violates the principle of the discourse that the speaker should be as modest as required in his /her speech. If violated, what he/she said sounds very rude to the hearer(s).

On the other hand, 「V てくれます」and 「V てもらいます」 indicates “inward” movement so that it is often obligatory to use in order to observe the above discourse principle, such as 「たかはしさんはりょこうの しゃしんを みせてくれました/たかはしさんに りょこうのしゃしんを みせてもらいました」( in 「てもらいます」constructions, the agent or the subject of the action beneficial to the speaker is marked with 「に」). In this example, a sentence without those elements, 「たかはしさんは わたしに りょこうのしゃ しんを みせました」, sounds extremely odd or it even means “Takahashi-san showed me the pictures of his/her trip, even if I did not want to”. Between 「V てくれます」and 「V てもらいます」, 「V てもらいま す」 is more common due to the same reason of 「くれます/もらいます」.