“Please sing this song (for me)” would be 「その歌を歌ってください」。

To ask/tell someone to do something, the structure is “te form of a verb” + ください.

To ask someone to LET you do something, we use the “te form” of a causative verb + ください, as we learned in this lesson.

私にその歌を歌わせてください。

I first thought it meant ”Will you sing this song for me?”

But it turned out to be: Please let me sing that song.

If that’s the case, how do I say, “Please sing this song for me?”

Thanks a lot.

When my husband asked my nisei dad for my hand, the response was “Why are you asking me? Did you ask her?”　　やっぱり結婚させてくれたのね。　

a friend told that the first time i met my girlfriend’s father i should ask “お父さんと、呼んでも良いですか？”　 i thought this would sound presumptuous or it just seemed wierd because we would never say something like it in my culture. before i attempted it, i asked my girlfriend “is this really what i should say?” and she said, “oh yeah! that’s really japanese. it’s correct.”

i guess the idea being, if the father says “no,” you’ll instantly know where you stand with him. if he says “yes,” you know you’re in the clear… for the time being.

The boyfriend wasn’t calling his girlfriend’s father “Dad”, like a son-in-law might in English speaking countries. In Japan, instead of using the person’s name, you usually call them according to their title relative to your group. The point of reference for this guy was his girlfriend. So, by calling him “お父さん”, he wasn’t calling him “Dad”, but “father (of my girlfriend)”.

In my job as wedding minister, I notice that everyone refers to the couple’s parents as お父様 and お母様 respectively.

でも、この話題はこの私には全然は早すぎですね！！！

ピーターさんと賛成です：彼女の父は怖いです。私よりも年上だ男は全部怖い．Ah, that’s an exaggeration. Didn’t Seinfeld say something about it? “I can make my own people, I’m not afraid of everyone…”