Base 1 + seru / saseru

These are used when you want to let/have/make someone do something. In English we fortunately have three different words which allow us to easily adjust the meaning to the one we want to convey. Accordingly, "I'll let him go to the store," "I'll have him go to the store," and "I'll make him go to the store" all have different nuances. In Japanese, however, seru, for yodan verbs, and saseru, for the others, are used for all of these. By the overall context and by using other "helper" words the different meanings, or feelings, as in "let him" vs. "make him," can be conveyed.

The important thing to remember is that yodan verbs use seru, like this:

• Obaa-san wa kodomotachi ni soto de asobaseru. (Grandma lets the children play outside.)
• Okaa-chan wa Kimiko ni kasa o kawaseru. (Mom will have Kimiko buy an umbrella.)
• Sensei wa gakusei ni mainichi shimbun o yomaseru. (The teacher makes the students read the newspaper every day.)

And ichidan verbs and the irregular kuru use saseru:

• Roku ji ni kodomotachi ni yuushoku o tabesaseru. (I'll have the kids eat dinner at 6:00.)
• John ni raishuu made ni kimesaseru. (I'll have John decide by next week.)
• Kare ni ashita kosaseru. (I'll have him come tomorrow.)

With suru verbs, suru is simply replaced with saseru:

• Otou-san wa Bob ni benkyou saseru. (Dad will make Bob study.)
• Kanojo ni saseru. (I'll have her do it.)

As you can see, in these constructions the person being let or made to do something becomes the indirect object, which is signified by adding ni after it.

One tricky thing is that there are some verbs which already have a "set form" to convey this meaning, and do not follow the above rules. A good example is miseru, which means "to show" or "to let see," as in:

• Kare wa karera ni mainichi terebi o miseru. (He lets them watch TV every day.)

So, although miru is an ichidan verb, you won't hear or see "misaseru." As you get used to more and more natural Japanese expressions, you will know which verbs are conjugated as outlined above and which have their own set forms which are used instead.

Now for the easy part: Since seru and saseru end in eru, they can be conjugated further like any other ichidan verb, making it easy to apply what has been learned in the previous lessons in order to make them negative, past tense, polite, and etc. For example:

• Ritsuko wa Kumi ni pen o kawasemashita. (Ritsuko had Kumi buy a pen.)
• Ojii-san wa kodomotachi ni ame o tabesasemasen. (Grandpa won't let the children eat candy.)
• Watashi wa Kenji ni eigo o benkyou sasetai desu. (I want to have Kenji study English.)
• John ni mise ni ikasemashou. (Let's have John go to the store.)
• Kodomotachi ni terebi o misemashou ka. (Shall we let the kids watch TV?)

These examples all use Base 2 final endings. Please review any you may have forgotten.

Word Check

sensei: teacher
gakusei: student(s)
mainichi: every day
shinbun: newspaper
yuushoku: dinner
taberu: to eat
raishuu: next week
made ni: by (a time or date, to set a deadline: by 5:00, by tomorrow, etc.)
kimeru: to decide
kare: he, him
ashita: tomorrow
kuru: to come
benkyou suru: to study
kanojo: she, her
karera: they, them
ame: candy, sweets ¹
eigo: the English language
mise: a store, a shop
iku: to go

(Verbs are shown in their plain form.)

Notes

1. Yes, "rain" is also ame, but it uses a different kanji. The word ame for sweets is usually written in hiragana.