Mina-san, is headhunting like this in your country?

Daveさん、

the causative can be translated as both ‘let’ and ‘make.’
in this case the boss was ‘making him promoted’
maybe from a japanese standpoint these are the same, because of hierarchy.
he is of a higher status, so if he lets him be promoted it’s the same as promoting him (making him promoted).

also, i’d like to point out that the story of Akechi Mitsuhide （明智光秀） is very interesting.
he DID kill Nobunaga (who wasn’t a Shogun, by the way), and for a long time was considered a traitor because of how the winners of the wars painted the history. But the ultimate benefactor of Mitsuhide’s so-called treachery was the Tokugawa family. When they were granted a shogunate, they neither stood to lose or benefit from either Nobunaga’s or Hideyoshi’s fall. If anything, Mitsuhide’s turn against Nobunaga served to besmirch Hideyoshi’s name, which gave rise to many popular Edo Period stories about Mitsuhide.

So now he is both a traitor and a tragic hero.

the last 3 new years in Japan, I watched stories about him on TV. so his story is still very popular.

マーキー

Markey,
Thank you very much for clearing that up. Makes more sense now. I think I would like to see more examples of Make vs. Let. I suppose the LET portion of causative would be shown in a question or in business speak it’s clearly defined…but in casual speak it’s probably different.

Maxi,
I think I might be able to clear it up.

される is passive, and when you think of it you need to think that this person is being acted upon by a force he cannot control. So for example in English if you say, “I was promoted by my boss” you are technically speaking in the passive tense. Something happened to you out of your control.

させる　is the causative which is not the inverse of passive. Causative would be for example in English “My mom let me play video games today.” By mom letting you play, you allowed to do something. It’s the same thing in Japanese when someone says : 説明させていただけますでしょうか。　(setsumei sasete itadakimasu deshou ka.)

That would mean, in a very polite way, “Will you let me give you the favor of explaining this to you?”

Does that make sense?

dmr214さん

i didn’t see your response when i replied. but those were really good examples! thank you.

i think we should work on this point in future lessons!

NickTさん、

It makes sense that you wouldn’t have heard of Benedict Arnold. People don’t tend to make much of those who become traitors to their enemies. He was our (America’s) traitor and at the most crucial moment in the formation of our country.

I can’t imagine that we’d have a Benedict Arnold Day the way you all have a Guy Fawkes Day.