くれる, あげる, and もらう

Question

Which pair is correct?

A

父がお正月に一万円あげました。私は今までに、こんなにたくさんもらったことがなかったので、とてもうれしかったです。

父がお正月に一万円くれました。私は今までに、こんなにたくさんくれたことがなかったので、とてもうれしかったです。

父がお正月に一万円あげました = My father gave Yen 10,000 to someone (other than me). — eltonjohn, Jul 06 '15 at 10:27

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:18

2

Neither pair is correct.

Correct pair:

「(From B) 父がお正月に一万円くれました。(From A) 私は今までに、こんなにたくさんもらったことがなかったので、とてもうれしかったです。」

The sentence patterns that are at work here are:

「2nd/3rd Person + は/が + 1st Person + に + (Object) + を + くれる」

「1st Person + は/が + 2nd/3rd Person + に + (Object) + を + もらう」

Also correct though not applicable with your example:

「2nd Person + は/が + 1st/3rd Person + に + (Object) + を + もらう」,

「3rd Person + は/が + 1st/2nd/Another 3rd Person + に + (Object) + を + もらう」, etc.

I will stop here as a complete list using all three verbs will only confuse users (as well as myself).

edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:18

Community

answered Jul 06 '15 at 09:37

（あなた/かれ）が私にお金をもらった。I think it is ungrammatical. – Friendly Ghost Jul 06 '15 at 10:42
@Friendly Ghost; In Japanese, any verbs can be grammatically applied to any grammatical persons. – user4092 Jul 06 '15 at 13:20
@Friendly Ghost: It sure sounds bizarre, but it is not ungrammatical. I can't come up with a good example, but let me have a try: we all know that "the sun sets in the east" is incorrect (semantically wrong), but *syntactically* the statement is without flaw. – eltonjohn Jul 07 '15 at 05:38
I've just come up with one; なるほど、私にもらってうれしかったわけか: "I see, so you were glad that you got it from me". – user4092 Jul 07 '15 at 23:51