Welcome to Study-Oke! We'll be learning Japanese grammar and
awesome karaoke songs to impress your friends and co-workers.
For our first lesson, we'll be looking at Yosui Inoue and
Tamio Okuda's classic Arigatou and the ~te kureru verb form.
About the Song
Arigatou is the 11th track (and first single)
from Inoue and Okuda's 1997 collaboration album Shopping.
Also of interest on the album is Ajia no Junshin (link is for English version). While the song was first released by pop duo Puffy AmiYumi
in 1996, it was written by Inoue and Okuda.
Arigatou is a simple, repetitive song that is a good match
for beginning Japanese learners. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy to
learn - much of the vocabulary is going to be new for beginners and it has some
fast sections that will feel like tongue-twisters at first. Still, it's an
appropriate challenge and an excellent way to learn the essential ~te
kureru verb form.
Today's Topic: Thank You for Learning "~Te Kureru!"
Let's start with a few examples:
We're going to skip the te and masu verb forms for now so that we can move straight to ~te kureru.
Kureru is used to describe an action that someone does for
you. Just as kore (this) is used to describe something near you and sore (that)
is used to describe something near the person you are speaking to, kureru
implies a very definite direction - from you (or he, she, etc.) to I.
As shown in the above examples, simply use the verb's te
form in front of kureru/kuremasu to form this sort of sentence. While the
examples are all in question form (kuremasu ka), it can also be used as a
statement: 昨日聞いてくれました (kinou kiite kuremashita / Yesterday, she asked
for me), 許してくれました (yurushite kuremashita / He forgave me), デートしてくれています (deeto shite kuremashita / She dated me).
Note that this verb is only used to describe a good thing
that someone does for you, not a neutral/negative thing that someone does to
you (we'll talk about される/sareru later).
To describe the opposite direction (something I do for you),
we would use あげる/ageru. It is conjugated in the same way as kureru (eg 許してあげる / yurushite ageru / I forgive you).
Arigatou uses the form ～てくれてありがとう
/ ~te kurete arigatou / Thank you for doing ~ for me. For example:
I've given you a phrasal translation (ie, an ugly, very
literal translation) to help you see what parts of the original correspond to
which parts of the translation. Note the structure of the lines: First, the
action which was done (smiling, giving a present, dating), then kureru to
indicate the direction of the action (from you to me), and lastly "domou
arigatou." Whereas in English we would say "Thank you very much for
giving me a present," in Japanese the sentence flows "Present giving
me very much thank you."
While some parts of these sentences can be rearranged and
remain grammatically correct, it is very important to make sure that Action
-> Kurete - > Arigatou remain in that exact order:
Note that "Thank you for taking me with you
occasionally" is grammatically correct in English, but not Japanese. Also remember that while the word order can be switched around in everyday conversations, it can't be done while singing!
That's all for now! Keep StudyOkeing and try looking and listening for the ~te
kureru and ~te ageru forms in other songs as well.
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