nuances of the verb 連れる ending in くれた vs もらった


Here are two sentences with the (compound) verb 連れる. I wanted to know the
nuances and how the two meanings differ.

>   1. 今日は、ルーカスさんが車でアパートが探しに連れて行ってくれた。
>   2. 今晩は、ルーカスさんの知人の家のパーティに連れて行ってもらった.
>

I wonder why the first uses くれた while the second uses もらった. Both actions seem
to be directed to the speaker. Why the difference?

My interpretation:

>   1. Today, Lucas took (accompanied) me by car to search for an apartment.
>   2. Yesterday, Lucas took me to an acquaintance's party.
>

Both of which are 'me' as the receiving end of the action.

Your insights would be appreciated.




I think part of the problem here stems from how we translate things from
Japanese. It seems that there is a strong preference when translating from
Japanese to keep the _voice_ of the verb: ie, whether it's active or passive.
I don't agree with this for learners because it can lead to confusion.
Consider the two sentences

> 本を読んでくれた。  
>  本を読んでもらった。

Let's assume it's my mom who read a book to me. In this situation, they're
both translated the same: "She read the book to me." But what's being lost in
translation here is that the subjects of the verbs are different. In the first
sentence, "mom" is the subject. In the second sentence, "I" am the subject.
For the second sentence, we can preserve the subject in English but we can't
do so without resorting to the passive voice (see below). If we don't leave
anything unspoken in the Japanese for the scenario I'm describing, then the
above two sentences become:

> 母は私に本を読んでくれた。  
>  私は母に本を読んでもらった。

Both of these sentences are likely to be translated as

> My mom read the book to me.

And, in fact, the first sentence is quite accurately translated as

> My mom read the book to me.

But regarding the second sentence, this translation misleads a bit regarding
the subject. We could preserve the subject by being translated as

> `*` I was read the book by my mom.

Granted, this is a rather awkward sounding sentence in English; also, there's
nothing in the Japanese that is passive about the sentence. But as a stepping
stone to grasping what's going on here, I think this approach can be rather
beneficial to the language learner since otherwise the learner is left to
wonder why there are two different verbs to express the very same idea--
answer: because the verbs construe different subjects. That is, in Japanese,
the subjects of the verbs are completely different.

So, in the sentences for your post

> 連れて行ってくれた  
>  連れて行ってもらった

Though there's not enough information in the second sentence to really decide
who is the recipient and who the giver of the benefit, let's just assume that
the recipient of the favor in both sentences is "me". And, let's use "they"
for party granting the favor (whether it's one or more individuals, may the
traditionalist English grammarians not attack!). Both of these sentences could
be translated as

> They brought me along.

That translation works very well for the first sentence since it preserves
both voice and subject. But in the second sentence, "I" am the one who
receives the favor and it is "I" who is the subject. So, we could translate it
a bit awkwardly as

> I was brought along by them.

Or less awkwardly as

> I got to go along with them

In both sentences, we preserve the subject. Unfortunately both English
sentences are passive while the Japanese is active. Nevertheless, I hope this
clarifies some of the differences going on here between てくれる and てもらう.




Cutting it short to avoid unnecessary confusions, I think what you really want
to know here simply boils down to the difference between ーてくれる and ーてもらう.

Forget about the 連れて行く part. Maybe it's confusing because it's a compound verb
but really you have to see it as no different than any other verb conjugated
in the ーて form in this case.

The difference in nuances stands simply in the fact that the sentence in てくれる
conveys a sense of gratitude from the receiver towards the giver (as he
received a favor). This makes sense if you think about this context: who's
being taken around is grateful to the his friend for taking the trouble of
driving him.

In the second sentence with ーてもらう this sense of gratitude is not expressed and
the speaker simply wants to convey "neutrally" that the subject (that is not
Lucas, but the speaker) was taken to the house party of a friend of Lucas. If
-てくれる was used here, we could infer that this guy really wanted to go to this
party and is grateful to Lucas for taking him.

That's it. I believe that any further discussion about grammatical
constructions etc would diverge from your original question and just risk to
create confusion.

I found a decent explanation [here](http://www.japanese-
language.aiyori.org/article8.html). It seems quite what you might want to
read.

Edit:

After some comment and since I realize the link I provided might not be the
most authoritative source, let me paste here a screenshot from "A dictionary
of Basic Japanese Grammar" from the voice "kureru".

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nOrpS.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nOrpS.png)

