The causative

The passive took the actor out of the sentence. The causative puts a second one in: somebody who made or let the first one act. The form costs nothing new, because it is the third construction built on a shift you learned in the first lesson, and one of the things it does is give you the most deferential way in Japanese to ask permission.

One more use of the あ-row shift

For a group 1 verb, move the final kana of the dictionary form to the あ row and add せる. Set the result beside the two forms you already build from that same shift.

One shift, three endings: ない, れる, せる. The う column keeps its わ throughout. Group 2 replaces る with させる: 食たべさせる, 見みさせる. The irregulars give させる and 来こさせる, and it is worth noticing that the causative of する is させる, identical in shape to the group 2 ending.

Every causative verb is a group 2 verb, so 読よませる gives 読よませない, 読よませた, 読よませて and so on by the group 2 rules.

Example. Give the negative, passive and causative of 使つかう and of 来くる.

For 使つかう: 使つかわない, 使つかわれる, 使つかわせる. All three take わ rather than あ, which is the う-verb irregularity showing up in three places at once and is a good argument for having learned it as a property of the verb rather than of the ない form.

For 来くる: 来こない, 来こられる, 来こさせる. The reading is こ in all three, and only the ending changes.

Now you. Give the causative of 待まつ, 話はなす, 食たべる and する, and say which two are identical in shape.

Make and let

The causative covers both coercion and permission, and Japanese does not separate them with different words. 子こどもを行いかせました can mean you made the child go or you let the child go, and only the situation says which.

先生せんせいは学生がくせいに本ほんを読よませました sensei wa gakusei ni hon o yomasemashita the teacher had the students read a book

娘むすめに留学りゅうがくさせます musume ni ryuugaku sasemasu I'm going to let my daughter study abroad

That ambiguity is less troublesome than it sounds, because Japanese has other ways to make the permission reading explicit, and the main one is the て form plus あげる: 子こどもを遊あそばせてあげました makes the indulgence obvious.

The particles, and what を against に says

With a transitive verb, the causee takes に, because を is already spoken for by the object.

母ははは子こどもに野菜やさいを食たべさせました haha wa kodomo ni yasai o tabesasemashita my mother made the children eat their vegetables

With an intransitive verb, both particles are available and they carry the difference between the two readings. を leans towards making, since it treats the causee as something acted on. に leans towards letting, since it treats them as a party in their own right.

子こどもを公園こうえんに行いかせました kodomo o kouen ni ikasemashita I sent the children to the park

子こどもに公園こうえんに行いかせました kodomo ni kouen ni ikasemashita I let the children go to the park

Treat this as a tendency and not a law. Speakers vary, the effect is stronger with some verbs than others, and a sentence with two に in it, as the second example has, is often reworded for that reason alone. What is not a tendency is the transitive rule: with an object already taking を, the causee must take に.

Example. Say that you made your younger brother wait an hour, and then that you let him use your computer.

弟おとうとを一時間いちじかん待またせました, and 弟おとうとにパソコンを使つかわせてあげました. The first uses 待まつ, which here has no object, and takes を on the causee to mark the coercion. The second has パソコン taking を already, so the causee must take に, and てあげる makes the permission reading explicit rather than leaving it to context. Without てあげる the second sentence would be ambiguous between letting him use it and making him use it.

Now you. Say that the teacher made the students write a report, and that the manager let the staff go home early.

させてください and させていただく

Here is the practical payoff. Put the causative into the て form and add ください and you are asking to be allowed to do something.

説明せつめいさせてください setsumei sasete kudasai please let me explain

Now combine it with the request ladder from the giving and receiving lesson. させていただく is "to receive the favour of being allowed to", and its potential negative question is about as deferential as Japanese gets.

明日あした休やすませていただけませんか ashita yasumasete itadakemasen ka might I be allowed to take tomorrow off?

Read the structure rather than memorising the string. 休やすむ becomes causative, 休やすませる, so somebody allows you to rest. That becomes て plus いただく, so you humbly receive that permission. That becomes potential, いただける, so you are asking about possibility. And that becomes a negative question, which asks for even less. Four moves, each of which you have met separately.

This is standard business Japanese and you will meet it constantly: 確認かくにんさせていただきます, "allow me to confirm"; 失礼しつれいさせていただきます, "if you will permit me to take my leave". A warning that comes with it: the pattern is now used so freely in Japanese customer service that native speakers complain about it, and stringing it onto every verb sounds obsequious rather than polite.

Example. You need to leave a meeting twenty minutes early. Ask permission at two levels of formality.

To a colleague: すみません、少すこし早はやく帰かえらせてください. To the head of the department: 申もうし訳わけありませんが、少すこし早はやく失礼しつれいさせていただけないでしょうか. Both are built on the causative of a verb you are performing yourself, which is the odd part of the construction and the key to it: you are not making anybody do anything, you are asking to be made able to. The second version adds every rung of the ladder at once, and the switch from 帰かえる to 失礼しつれいする is worth copying, since naming your own departure as a discourtesy is standard in formal Japanese.

Now you. Ask your professor to let you use their laboratory over the weekend.

The causative passive

Combine the two voices and you get the form for being made to do something against your will, which is one of the highest-value patterns in ordinary spoken Japanese.

Build the causative, then make it passive. 飲のむ gives causative 飲のませる, and its passive is 飲のませられる. In speech, group 1 verbs contract this to される, so 飲のまされる.

部長ぶちょうにお酒さけを飲のまされました buchou ni osake o nomasaremashita my boss made me drink

一時間いちじかんも待またされました ichijikan mo matasaremashita I was kept waiting a whole hour

The contraction does not apply to verbs ending in す, because 話はなさされる would put two さ together; those keep the full 話はなさせられる. Group 2 verbs have no contraction either: 食たべさせられる.

子こどもの時とき、ピアノを習ならわされました kodomo no toki, piano o narawasaremashita I was made to learn the piano as a child

The person doing the making takes に, exactly as the actor of any passive does, and the sentence carries the same undertone of grievance the adversative passive did. That is not an accident; it is the passive part of the form doing what the passive always does in Japanese.

What you cannot do with it

One restriction matters more than all the grammar above. You cannot use the causative on somebody senior to you. 部長ぶちょうに確認かくにんさせます, "I'll make the manager check", is not a politeness error but a category error: it claims authority over a person who has authority over you.

What you use instead is the receiving construction, which describes the same event from below: 部長ぶちょうに確認かくにんしていただきます, "I will have the manager check", literally receiving the favour of his checking. The event is identical and only the direction of the grammar has changed.

The same restriction applies in reverse to させていただく, which is why it works: you are not causing anything, you are receiving permission. Between the two of them, causative for people below you and ていただく for people above you, you can describe any arrangement of who does what without ever putting yourself in the wrong place.

Vocabulary

Two lessons have now been about who acts and who is affected. The last restriction in this one, that you cannot make a superior do anything, is not really about the causative: it is about a system for marking status that runs through the whole verb. That system is next.