Suppose that someone does something for you. You describe the act in a sentence whose subject is “Watashi (I)”. The sentence will be “(Watashi wa) V-te morau”. Then, how do you ask when you want someone to do something for you,? Considering that the potential form of “morau” is “moraeru”, you may say “V-te morae masenka.” for “please do it for me.” Technically, “V-te morae masenka” is a kind of polite expression (丁寧語) but this doesn’t sound polite enough for native Japanese speaker, actually. Probably that is the reason for young people these days to say “V-te morattemo Iidesuka.” which they think is more polite than “V-te morae masenka.” I personally don’t like the expression “V-te morattemo Ii desuka.” because it doesn’t sound polite on the contrary to their intentions. Then how can we make “V-te morae masenka” more polite, or in other words, how can it be turned into humble language? The answer has already been introduced in the exercise A5 in the section 26. By changing the verb from “morau” to its humble alternative “itadaku”, you can ask as below;
1. “V-te itadake masenka”
(where, the potential form of “itadaku” is “itadakeru”)
Today’s sentence construction uses a verb “Tsutaeru/Tsutaemasu” which means “conveying a message”. Therefore when you want someone to convey your message to a third person, you can say;
2. Tsutaete itadake masenka.
We are learning how to use the particle “-to” which marks the end of a quoted utterances and/or thought in the section 33 now.
3. [Your message] to Tsutaete itadake masenka.
To whom to convey is also an important information, so,
4. [Person] ni [Your message] to Tsutaete itadake masenka.
The followings are examples of the sentence construction 4;
5. Satou-san ni Nijuppun kurai Okureru to Tsutaete itadake masenka.
(Please tell Sato-san that I will be late for twenty minutes or so.)
6. Suzuki-san ni Nichiyoubi no Renshuu ni Ikenai to Tsutaete itadake masenka.
(Please tell Suzuki-san that I will not be able to come the practice on Sunday.)
7. Takahashi-san ni Kyou no Yoru wa Tsugou ga Warui to Tsutaete itadake masenka.
(Please tell Takahashi-san that tonight is inconvenient for me.)
8. Kobayashi-san ni Ikeda-san wa Byouki da to Tsutaete itadake masenka.
(Please tell Kobayashi-san that Ikeda-san has got sick now.)
Note that Okureru in 5 is a dictionary form, Ikenai in 6 is a Nai-form of potential form Ikeru, Warui in 7 is an I-adjective, and Byouki in 8 is a noun in the above examples.
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This post was written with reference to the exercise A6 on Section33 of “Minna no Nihongo (2nd Edition)” published by “3A Corporation”
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