All about くれる: Requesting Casually and Requesting Politely

Introduction

In our previous lesson, we talked about using the 謙譲語けんじょうご verb, 頂いただく, to make humble requests. In this lesson, we'll continue with the theme of requests, but we won't be making use of (much) 謙譲語けんじょうご or 尊敬語そんけいご. Instead, we'll return to the plain old くれる, and take a deep dive into using it to make requests. Useful stuff, I promise!

If you must request, request politely

Structure

• 

  て form verbくれる
  Example:
  → このピザを切きってくれない？
  ”Would you cut this pizza for me?”

Okay, like I mentioned, this one's all about くれる. So first, a short review about this innocent little verb.

REMEMBER, くれる means "to give", not "to receive", and くれる always moves towards the speaker. This means that the action of くれる is done by someone else, not the speaker. This might not seem important but it is! If you remember your previous lesson on もらう and いただく, you'll remember that those two receiving verbs also move towards the speaker and that the action of もらう/いただく was also done by, well, the speaker.