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I am a little confused as to what is going on here:

ともだちを パーティーに よびました。

Why is this not ともだちに (recipient of the invite) パーティーで (place of the invite)
よびました? It would be helpful if someone can please explain, thank you.
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2012-11-28T22:24:13.103
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2012-11-29T00:14:42.793
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question
particles
Simple Particle Question (よびます）
Let's insert a subject.

（私は）ともだちを パーティーに よびました。

Who is doing the Yobu? I am. Who is the target of my Yobu-ing? My friend.
Where am I Yobu-ing him to? A party.

を marks the object, に marks (in this case) the target location, directionally.

で is the place in the invite, statically, as opposed to directionally-- You
might say パーティーでさわいだ, "We had fun _at_ the party." You wouldn't say, "We had
fun _to_ the party" in this case. But since you're calling him _to_ the party,
we use に.
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2012-11-28T23:03:21.670
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2012-11-28T23:03:21.670
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を marks the direct object of a verb. Basically, the direct object answers the
questions "what" or "who". So in this case, "Who did I invite?" I invited my
friend.

I think it's easier to see this relationship if we get rid of the extra bit:
パーティーに. After we remove that, we're left with ともだちを よびました。 I invited my
friend.

に marks an indirect object. It can be confusing because it has a couple other
common uses, but basically, it tells us the **direction** of the action, which
usually correlates with the English _to_. Be careful not to confuse the
direction of the action with the _location_ , which is what で does.

To answer your question, though, the reason it is the way it is is that we are
acting directly upon our friend. It's just a little unclear because we're
using a verb like よびます instead of a much clearer action like _hit_.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-11-29T00:14:42.793
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2012-11-29T00:14:42.793
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answer