86045
The first episode of ボボボーボ・ボーボボ is titled:

> 「毛魂」と書いて「スパークリング」と読ませたい…

Which seems to say "It's written as [hair soul], I want you to read it as
[sparkling]"

To my understanding, 読ませたい is a combination of 読ませる＋たい which would equal "to
want to make someone read". Is this a correct interpretation?

If so, is this grammar used frequently over 〜て＋ほしい？
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-10T01:22:17.237
86044
2021-04-10T04:27:39.503
41823
question
grammar
Help with the meaning of 読ませたい？
I want to translate it as "I want to have it read as sparkling". But that
leaves a pesky passive voice in there that's not in the original.

On the other hand, a more literal translation seems to be "I want to have
others read it as sparkling". Then we've got the causative without resorting
to the passive (though I think the passive construction sounds more natural in
English).

It's a bit more challenging to explain why it's not 読んでほしい. But
スパークリング」と読んでほしい just means "I want them to read it as sparkling". The meaning
is similar, but not the same. It's not merely that "I" **want them** to read
it; "I" _want_ to **make them** read it a certain way. Well, _make_ is perhaps
a bit strong, which is why above I translated it as "to have others read". But
here I'm trying to clarify the difference between the two.

Another construction to consider is よませてほしい. But that would mean "I want
someone to have them read..."

When we say **verb** てほしい we're expressing the idea of wanting someone to do
something (for us). But in this sentence, it's よませたい. "I" is the one "wanting
to cause".

What seems to me the next obvious question is why not have said something like
よませられ＋たい. Here I'm going more out on a limb. I'd say there are two reasons
this could not work: (1) this would make the kanji the subject and as kanji
are not sentient (at least as best as I can tell--this is my attempt at
humor), they cannot _want_ something; (2) even if it were possible for kanji
to want something, then the sentence would incorrectly say mean "the kanji
want to be made to read". That's clearly not at all what is intended. (And
here's an interesting question, at least to me: in English we can have a
passive causative of a passive-->"it wants to be made to be read as...". Can
this be done in Japanese?)

A final note for which it would be good to hear from a native speaker: In
English we can say things like "I want to be found" or "I want to be crowned
the king" etc: in other words, we can want something be _done_ to us (ie we
can want a passive action performed). But, I've never seen such a construct in
Japanese. Can you say something like 見つけられたい? I don't think so. In such a
case, you would instead say something like 見つけてくれたい perhaps (but I've never
seen/heard this either) or just simply 見つけてほしい. The point being, I don't think
you can add たい to a passive verb in Japanese.

So, this circles back to my original inclination to translate the sentence in
question as "I want to have it read as sparkling". The English works and I
don't think there's a corresponding literal Japanese version of this. As with
"I want to be found", a different verbal construction would be used in
Japanese.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-10T03:40:32.293
86045
2021-04-10T04:27:39.503
2021-04-10T04:27:39.503
4875
4875
86044
answer