How to translate 'She was made to make him give me the book'?

Question

How to translate 'She was made to make him give me the book'?
(as in: 'someone made her make him give me the book.')

Can I translate it to:

Kanojo wa watasi-ni kare-ni hon-o kure-sase-sase-rare-ta.

彼女は私に彼に本をくれさせさせられた。

Please kindly help.

Answer 1

I think your translation is unnatural, though I am not sure whether it is grammatically incorrect or not. I translate it as 彼女は、彼が私にその本をあげるようにさせられた. You can use a phrase が～をするようにする that has the similar meaning.

Answer 2

This is where verb conjugation break-downs are extremely helpful.

Let's boil it down to the simplest verb structure, and build up. First, you have to align the nouns properly for the rest to begin falling into place.

So, we'll downgrade your sentence from "She was made to make him give me the book." to "He gave me the book."

彼が私に本を上げた。

Add "her" in as the subject that is influencing the giving (aka "She made him give me the book."):

彼女は彼が私に本を上げさせた。

Now we take the root of the phrase that is "him being made to give me the book" (in italics), and now we manipulate "her" to be made to do this action:

彼女は彼が私に上げさせるようにさせられた。

Note the difference from させる (to make someone/something do) to させられる (to be made to do).

However, it is probably more natural for Japanese to convey "She was made to have him give me the book," which is slightly different but similar connotation:

彼女は彼が私に上げるようにさせられた。

Answer 3

I'd like to break this down into two parts. First, we need to use the particles correctly to properly establish the relationships between "She" "me", "him", and "book". You wrote:

彼女は私に彼に本を...etc.

This is not correct. If I'm understanding the English correctly: "She" is influencing "him" to "give you the book".

If you want to use the particle "に" after both, 私(me) and 彼(him), the order is not correct. に is a particle that denotes direction. For 彼に (toward him) and 本 (book) to be right next to each other as you wrote, this implies that the book is going toward him, rather than the book going toward you.

If you would like to use に after both 彼(him) and 私(me) you would rather switch it up and say:

彼女は彼に私に本を...etc.

Now if you insist on keeping the order of the objects the same, you can do, 彼女は私に彼が本を...etc. This works because the direction of "him giving the book" is now pointed toward you.

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Second part. There are many ways to express, "made to give". This can be quite forceful. This can be suggested but not forceful. This can be varying levels of threat etc. I think the best verb here is 促す.

Using the に twice form:

彼女は彼に私に本を渡すよう促した。

Using your order of objects with different particles:

彼女は私に彼が本を渡すよう促した。

Between these two, I recommend the former, 彼女は彼に私に本を渡すよう促した。Although the second one is technically correct, having the subject 彼(him) be right next to the object 彼女(her) takes less work in the mind of the reader/listener to keep track of the relationships.