Learning objectives
- Lesson goals: Learn the causative form for making or letting someone do something — distinguish coercion from permission.
- Form and connection: [VerbCausative form]
- Nuance in real use: The causative form is grammar about power and permission — you mark who is giving orders and who is following them. In status-conscious Japanese society, mastering the causative isn't just grammar — it's a window into social rules.
Form and connection
Core Explanation
Learn the causative form for making or letting someone do something — distinguish coercion from permission.
Cultural Note
Practical examples
Common pitfalls
Build the base form before adding the pattern
Complete the required conjugation first. Do not keep polite and plain endings at the same time.
Match politeness to the situation
The examples are reliable starting points; relationships and context can still change the most natural wording.
Practice and answers
Show answer
[VerbCausative form]Show answer
The mother made her child eat vegetables.Show answer
部長ぶちょうは私わたしにレポートを書かかせました。 ([VerbCausative form])Continue learning
Passive Form: Be Done / Suffer
Learn the passive form for receiving actions and expressing inconvenience or victimhood. This lesson combines form, context, examples, common mistakes, and practice so you can use the pattern in real communication.
Causative-Passive: Be Forced To
Learn the causative-passive form expressing "being forced to do" — combining causative and passive for a sense of compulsion. This lesson combines form, context, examples, common mistakes, and practice so you can use the pattern in real communication.
Complete Guide to Plain Forms: Linking Ideas, Quotations, and Judgments
Learn the plain forms of nouns, adjectives, and verbs and use them to modify nouns, quote speech, express time and reasons, state plans, make judgments, and build indirect questions.