Meaning of 掛ける after ご面倒?


ご面倒をお掛けして申し訳ございません。 means "We are sorry for the inconvenience." but what is
the meaning of 掛ける in this context?




The meaning of 掛ける in that context can be thought of as "to burden".

Of course the English translation then looks like it should be "Sorry to
burden you with trouble/nuisance", which isn't natural in English. It works in
Japanese though, and strengthens the feeling of inconvenience.

Note that 掛ける is one of those words that doesn't really have a single
representative English equivalent. In fact, EDICT lists no less than
[23](http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E6%8E%9B%E3%81%91%E3%82%8B&eng=&dict=edict)
potential English translations.

If I **had** to give a more general description of the word used **in this
kind of context** , I'd say you might like to think of it as describing an
action/effect being inflicted or imposed on someone/something. But please use
this with caution, as it's not always right.

