Making a kind request

Japanese Language
1

If I want to change the demand to buy a book (本を買う) to a kind request, would the grammar be “本を買いますてください” or “本を買ってください”?

2

Just to check the situation, are you wanting someone else to buy a book for you or are you asking permission to buy a book?

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3

If you want to ask for someone else to buy a book for you, you could use 本を買ってください. If you want to be even more formal than that, 本を買っていただけませんか. There are several more ways to ask depending on the levels of formality you’re going for.

To read more about ください, you can reference Tofugu.

I recommend reading about the ます form too, it’ll help you understand it better and what it’s used for.

That being said, in your original question, @KenCalderon, “本を買う” just means “buy a book”, it’s not a demand or a request, 買う here is just the normal verb.

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4

Just to be clear, the phrase 本を買う is not a demand. It looks very much like a dictionary phrase “to buy a book”. Depending on a context it can mean “I am buying a book” or “I will buy a book.”

A demand would be 「本を買わせて」meaning “Let me buy a book”. But I can’t quite imagine a normal situation where this phrase would be useful.

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5

It took me a second too, but because the user said “kindly” and asked about ください, I assume it’s just a misunderstanding and not 買わせて hehe. But who knows. Could also be 買わせてください.

本を買わせろ! :rofl:

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6

Sorry for not providing context. Here it could be a professor suggesting to a student to buy a book, perhaps so they can improve on their learning.

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7

本を買ってください is ok. The professor is asking for the book to be bought for the course / to improve the students’ learning. “Please buy the book” (as a direct instruction for the students to do it) kind of thing. If you want to phrase it as a suggestion, the structure is different, though.

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8

See, the context is quite important.

If you want to suggest a book to the students you can say something like this.

〇〇についてもっと知りたい方はこの本がおすすめです。ぜひ読んでみてください。

“For those who want to know more about X, I recommend this book. Please check it out.”

I don’t think saying “buy the book” is necessary.

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9

Yah, or 本を買ったほうがいい = you should buy the book

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