Japanese Causative and Causative-Passive Explained

When Japanese reaches for the causative

English splits this territory across several verbs. We make a child eat vegetables, let a friend pay, have an assistant book a room, and get a colleague to check a file. Japanese folds all of that into one conjugation on the verb of the action itself. The sentence still names the person whose will drives things as the subject, and the person who actually performs the action gets marked with a particle.

That is why the causative shows up far more often than beginners expect. It appears whenever a parent talks about children, whenever a manager describes assigning work, and constantly in polite speech, because asking permission in Japanese means asking someone to let you do something rather than asking whether you may. If you have already worked through basic verb conjugation, this is the next form that changes how much you can say.

Building the causative from any verb

Every causative ends in seru or saseru, which means every one of them behaves like an ichidan verb from that point on. Kakaseru gives kakasemasu, kakasenai, kakasete and kakaseta with no new rules to learn. That is the quiet reward of this form: one derivation, then conjugation you already know.

Watch the u-ending godan verbs. Kau becomes kawaseru, not kaaseru, and harau becomes harawaseru. The same w appears in the plain negative kawanai, so if you can say that, you can build the causative.

One form, two readings

The make reading and the let reading share a single conjugation, and Japanese speakers separate them without effort because the surrounding facts do it for them. A manager telling a subordinate to work on Saturday is making them. A parent describing a child choosing their own clothes is letting them. Nobody needs a grammatical marker for that, any more than English needs one to tell the two senses of have apart.

There are still reliable clues. When the action clearly benefits the person doing it, and especially when the speaker adds te ageru or te kureru, the sentence reads as permission. When the speaker outranks the causee and the action serves the speaker's purpose, it reads as coercion. Adding muri ni, meaning forcibly, removes all doubt in the make direction.

Read those two mother sentences as a minimal pair. Only the particle changes, and the whole flavour moves from a decision imposed on the sister to a decision left to her.

O and ni decide who is in charge

With an intransitive verb such as iku, kaeru or yasumu, you can mark the causee with either o or ni. Choosing o puts the action firmly under the speaker's control, so musuko o ryūgaku sasemashita sounds like the parent sent him. Choosing ni hands the initiative back, so musuko ni ryūgaku sasemashita sounds like the parent agreed to it. Both are grammatical and the difference is real.

With a transitive verb the choice disappears. The thing being acted on already takes o, and a Japanese clause does not tolerate two o-marked phrases, so the causee must take ni. Kodomo ni yasai o tabesasemashita is the only option. Learners who default to o everywhere produce kodomo o yasai o tabesaseru, which native speakers reject immediately.

Sasete kudasai and asking for permission

This is the single most useful thing in the pattern for a learner, and it is worth drilling before anything else here. English asks may I, which puts the focus on your own permission. Japanese asks the listener to let you, which puts the focus on their generosity, and that is why the causative te-form plus kudasai sounds so natural in shops, offices and classrooms.

The softer versions climb a ladder. Sasete kudasai is a direct polite request. Sasete moraemasu ka asks whether you may receive the favour. Sasete itadakemasen ka is the most deferential and is what you want with a manager or a stranger. A yes usually comes back as hai, dōzo, and a refusal usually arrives half-finished, as sumimasen, ima wa chotto, with the rest left unsaid.

Notice harawasete kudasai. You are not saying I will pay, you are asking the other person to allow you to pay, which is exactly the right move when two people are reaching for the bill. The same logic makes torasete kudasai far softer than pointing a camera and saying ii desu ka.

Sasete itadakimasu at work

Sasete itadakimasu is the causative te-form plus the humble verb itadaku, so it literally means I humbly receive your permission to do this. In an office it has become the standard way to announce your own action politely, and you will hear it in meetings, on calls and in email several times a day. It is not asking anything; the permission is treated as already given.

Use it for actions that touch the listener: checking their document, presenting to them, leaving before them, declining their invitation. Do not spray it over every verb, because stacking it on trivial actions sounds heavy and slightly comic. One or two per exchange is plenty, and plain masu forms carry the rest of the conversation.

Enryo sasete itadakimasu is worth memorising whole. It is how Japanese declines an invitation without ever saying no, and it lands as courteous rather than cold. Compare it with the blunt ikimasen, which is grammatical but leaves the other person with nothing to work with.

How the causative-passive is built

Turn the causative into a passive and you get the viewpoint of the person who had to do it. The speaker becomes the subject, the person who imposed the action takes ni, and the sentence carries a clear undertone of reluctance. English usually reaches for was made to, or simply had to with a sigh in the voice.

Mechanically you take the causative, which always ends in seru or saseru, and apply the ichidan passive rule: drop ru and add rareru. Kakaseru becomes kakaserareru, tabesaseru becomes tabesaserareru. Godan verbs then contract that long ending to asareru in ordinary speech, with one exception you should memorise: verbs ending in su never contract.

Being made to do it in real sentences

In conversation the short godan forms dominate, so matasaremashita and nomasaremashita are what you will actually hear. The full forms are not wrong, and they turn up in writing and careful speech, but a learner who only produces kakaserareru sounds slightly bookish. Learn both columns and speak the shorter one.

One caution about tone. Because this form implies you did not want to do the thing, using it about a favour someone did for you can sound ungrateful. Sensei ni hon o yomaseraremashita says the teacher forced you to read, which is fine as a complaint and awkward as thanks.

The person who imposed the action always takes ni here, never kara. Buchō ni kakasaremashita is correct; buchō kara kakasaremashita is not something a native speaker would say.

Minimal pairs that keep the three forms apart

The first two differ by a single syllable and reverse who suffered. Say them back to back until the se and the sa are physically different in your mouth, because in a fast sentence that one mora is the whole message.

The last pair is the one learners miss. Te morau asks for a favour and thanks the giver; the causative orders. If a colleague helped you willingly, tetsudatte moraimashita is the sentence you want, and tetsudawasemashita would make you sound like their boss.

Mistakes that give a learner away

• Marking the causee with o when the verb already has an object: say kodomo ni yasai o tabesasemasu, never kodomo o yasai o.
• Building kau as kaaseru instead of kawaseru, and harau as haraaseru instead of harawaseru.
• Saying kisaseru for kuru; the causative of kuru is kosaseru, while kisaseru belongs to kiru, meaning to wear.
• Contracting hanasaserareru to hanasasareru, which does not exist because su verbs have no short form.
• Overusing sasete itadakimasu on small actions until every sentence sounds like a formal announcement.
• Using the causative when te morau is meant, which turns a favour someone did for you into an order you gave.

Practise it out loud this week

• Take five verbs you already say daily and build the causative for each, checking the class before you speak.
• Turn each one into a permission request with sasete kudasai and imagine who you would be asking.
• Record two versions of the same event, once from the boss's side with the causative and once from yours with the causative-passive.
• Say the o and ni versions of one intransitive sentence back to back and name the difference in meaning aloud.
• Rehearse enryo sasete itadakimasu and shitsurei sasete itadakimasu until they come out as single words.