Tabesaseru

Tabesaseru is the causative form of the Japanese verb taberu, meaning to eat. It expresses causing someone else to eat, or feeding someone. In practical use, it can convey making another person eat a certain food or, in some contexts, allowing someone to eat.

Formation and basic use

Tabesaseru is formed from taberu (to eat) by adding the causative ending, yielding 食べさせる (tabesaseru). The polite present form is 食べさせます (tabesasemasu). The construction typically follows a pattern where the eater is the direct object of the act (food) and the person who is caused to eat is marked with ni: 私は彼女にパンを食べさせる。 Watashi wa kanojo ni pan o tabesaseru. “I make her eat bread.” The subject of the sentence causes the action, while the eater is the one who consumes the food.

Nuance and usage

Tabesaseru emphasizes causing another person to eat something, often indicating instruction, permission, coercion, or provision of food. It is common in family or caregiving contexts, such as parents encouraging children to eat vegetables. The form can carry a sense of responsibility or control by the causer and is frequently used with animate receivers (people or animals).

Causative-passive form

The causative can be combined with passive voice to express being made to eat: 食べさせられる (tabesaserareru). This often conveys pressure or coercion, as in 私は母に野菜を食べさせられた, “I was made to eat vegetables by my mother.”

Related forms

Taberu remains the dictionary form; tabesaseru is its causative, tabesaseru becomes tabesasemasu in polite form, and tabesaserareru marks the causative passive.

See also

Taberu, causative forms in Japanese, passive and causative-passive constructions.