Hello everyone,
so far I know very little japanese, but I try to communicate anyway (using translator).
But translation of this sentence: お友達さんにも聞いてもらえるのですか？ doesn’t make sense to me.
Can You help me please? (-人-)
Context: I wrote, that I let my friend listen to this person’s song and that he like it. The sentence above was the reply.
I believe that means:
Did you have your friend listen (to the song) as well?
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That’s why you should never use never use translators for entire sentences, especially when translating between drastically different languages like English and Japanese.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding going on.
I was about to give a translation of my own, but mrsaturnさんs translation seems way more plausible than mine. もらう might be the tricky word in this sentence.
Thank You very much m(_ _)m
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What trips me up is that they are using the potential present form of もらう, which implies that they are asking if you could have your friend listen to it (in the future). お友達にも聞いてもらったのですか? would be the past tense version.
Edit: didn’t mean to reply to Heiopei specifically
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I know, I tried to translate it word by word but still couldn’t make sense of it. I need to study harder (ง •̀_•́)ง
Thank You for reply
That’s a good point. I think a super literal translation would be something like:
Can you receive the favor (from your friend) of having your them (your friend) listen (to the song) as well?
One of the problems of direct translations: they sound weird 
Because it uses に, I read it as “Can you ask your friend too?”
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日本語のレッスンの時間だよ！Time for a short Japanese lesson. It’s fine if you don’t know any of this, but it’s just an explanation of what’s actually going on in the sentence.
Whenever you see Personにverb in its て formもらう (もらいます, if you’re being polite), it means you got someone to do something.
e.g. まだ弟ちゃんに野外に行ってもらわないよ！ - Ugh, I still haven’t gotten my little brother to go outside.
Here though, もらう is in its potential form, which is basically the equivalent to “can” in English.
もらう → もらえる
も means “also”.
の at the end of a sentence usually means that the person it looking for a more detailed reply.
As a side note, the お in front of 友達 makes it respectful. It can also be found in (お)茶 (tea), (お)電話 (phone), (お)仕事 (job), (お)名前 (name), (お)返事 (reply), etc., etc. さん is another form of politeness that can also mean Mr./Mrs./Ms.
So, yeah. Full sentence translates to “Will you also be able to get your friends to listen to it?”
This is lower intermediate stuff, so if you say that you’re a beginner, then it makes sense that you wouldn’t be able to understand the sentence. Actually, I only just recently learned 〜てもらう.
edit: I guess it can also mean “Can you also ask your friends for me?”
edit2: k nvm
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I would still go with ask, not listen. I can check with a native speaker later.
It really depends on the context of the sentence.
Just to clarify and help with the context.
@Beilian did you write " I let my friend listen to this person’s song and that he like it" in English or did you write something in Japanese? If you wrote something in Japanese, that context will help define the Japanese response.
The OP confirmed that it was a comment about a song.
Ah, missed that. Carry on.
Nah nah, it’s cool man. He only edited it in just now.
Hmm. I think I understand the Japanese sentence - but what I don’t understand is how it could be a reply to what OP (thinks) they said. My understanding is the conversation went like this:
A: I got my friend to listen to [song name] and he liked it.
B: Can you get your friend to listen to it?
But that doesn’t really make any sense, does it?
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It would be interesting to see what @Beilian originally wrote. Since they said they’re using a translator, it may well be something in that original statement that was confusing and this reply is simply trying to confirm the meaning, like an “Is [the above] what you mean?” kind of thing.
I wouldn’t get tripped up over the tense of the response. I’m going with:
Oh, you were able to play it for your friend too?
Change the premise, and I’ll change my translation, but this is simplest to me and makes sense in the given context.
I’m going with, “Oh, can you ask your friend too?”
But like everyone said, without context it’s 無理。
“Your friend is also able to listen for me?” (said as acknowledgement, not as a query)
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