1. Particles are post-positions, not pre-positions – it’s not に+一万円 but おとうさん+に. に marks the indirect object of the verb – in this case, the verb is 貸す, to lend, meaning the indirect object is the recipient of the lending. “I lent my father ten thousand yen.” In any sentence, the verb is the most important word – if particles aren’t making sense, look at the verb.

2. よかった. Past tense of いい meaning “good” – when いい conjugates, it reverts to its older form よい.

3. I’m pretty sure the ～て form of verbs and adjectives is explained somewhere. Basically it’s a way of writing “and” for verbs and adjectives, among other things. こういちさんは日本に行って、たくさん写真を撮りました – Koichi went to Japan and took lots of photos. このステーキは安くて、おいしいです – this steak is cheap and delicious. The conjugation of verbs into the ～て form is the same as the ～た form, which is something else that I’m pretty sure is there. It’s also often used for attaching auxiliary verbs.

The ～てください form is one such auxiliary verb, and one you’ll see a lot. It’s a way of making a polite request. For example, ここで吸わないでください – please don’t smoke here.

On a side note, do you want to try replying to some of your threads to show you understand, so it doesn’t seem like we’re tossing all these helpful posts into the void? I have to admit, I’m starting to feel a little like I’m being taken for granted…

を marks the direct object, which is the thing having the verb done to it. In this case, it’s the ten thousand yen that’s being lent, so that’s the direct object.

Indirect objects typically only occur for verbs like give, receive, send, borrow, lend, et cetera – I can’t honestly think of any dissimilar examples aside from causative verbs (which Koichi might add to TextFugu someday) but maybe there are some and I’m just not calling them to mind. In all of these cases, the indirect object is the person who is not the doer of the verbs (since the doer is the subject). I can’t really think of a better way to phrase that, but basically the indirect object is the recipient in giving verbs, and the giver in receiving verbs.

Examples:

I gave money to Fred – I is the subject, Fred is the indirect object, and money is the direct object.

I received money from Fred – exactly the same: I is the subject, Fred the indirect object and money the direct object.

Fred gave money to me – in this case, Fred is the subject, me/I is the indirect object, and money is still the direct object.

Note that in both of the second and third sentences, the money is going from Fred to me – which one of us is the subject depends on which verb is being used. It’s the same for Japanese.

English actually has the subjective and objective cases for words, because some differ depending on where they come in the sentence – who/whom, I/me, him/he, et cetera – but in the real world, people think about it so rarely that few people know which is which – the general confusion over who/whom is the perfect example. In Japanese there’s no cases, just particles – が for the subject, を for the direct object, and に for the indirect object.

Edit: I guess the tl;dr version is: you can kind of think of it as another application of に meaning direction – I gave money to Fred, I received money from Fred.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by  Joel.

@Joel: Wow, you’re really committed to helping people here :P You don’t have to you know, if you want to take a break. Let his questions go unanswered, or at least get answered by someone else.

@Yamada: It’s ok to not understand everything. And like Joel says, it would be nice to give more acknowledgement/thanks than just saying “Ok, next question…”. Joel spends a lot of time and effort coming up with great replies; it’s not very nice to take advantage of his good nature like that, hopping from question to question :P

I don’t mind helping – I mean, it’s pretty much the only study I’ve done all summer. =P I just like to know I’m actually helping, and not just confusing matters further. =)