74943
行かせる - Make someone go

I saw this sentence, "息子を公立学校に行かせてください" and it seems to translate to "Please
**send** your child to a public school" instead of "please make your child go
to a public school". The question is, why does the causative form of 行く
translates to "send" instead of "make someone go"
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2020-03-10T13:45:47.110
74941
2020-03-13T09:46:59.897
36603
question
causation
行かせる means "send" rather than "make someone go"
You can take this 「せる」 as the causative or imperative form, but the context
determines which. It is a bit complicated.

According to [コトバンク](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%9B%E3%82%8B-549042):

> 相手が自分の思うようにするよう。また、ある事態が起こるようにしむける意を表す。

「息子を公立学校に行かせてください」 : "Please make your child go to a public school"

Your son might want to go to a private school for some reason. In this case,
you can't allow him to go there. So, you might be asking the teacher to
persuade him to go to a public school.

* * *

In another scenario,

> （「せていただく」「せてもらう」の形で）相手方の許しを求めて行動する意を表す。「言わ **せて** いただく」「やら **せて** もらう」

It is asking someone for a permission to do something (If the situation were
special, it might be making allowance to do something.).

So, 「息子を公立学校に行かせてください」 means _"Please let my son choose to go / allow my son
to go to a public school"_ In this case, the teacher might be stopping your
son from going to a public school.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-10T15:01:57.033
74943
2020-03-13T09:46:59.897
2020-03-13T09:46:59.897
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74941
answer