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These are all of the different ways I can think of (I might have missed some) of how to request something in Japanese in no real particular order:

しろ
して
してくれる
してくれ
してくれて
してください
しなさい

After some time of learning these conjugations I stumbled across various sentences, usually in video games or recipes, that would use the base dictionary form of a verb, rather than the above, to ask me to do something. I have the feeling it also applies to telling myself to do something (in an alarm for example) because saying 牛乳を買って feels a bit odd as opposed to saying 牛乳を買う, but I'm not entirely sure.

Here are a few more examples:

－「信用して」と彼は言った。
－ できれば、数月に旅行へ出ていくときにうちのワンちゃんの面倒を見て下さい。

－ スポンジを作ります。ビターチョコレートを刻み、湯せんで溶かします。
－ ノーマルモードをクリアする

I imagine the latter doesn't really have much to do with requesting at all and is more just used for instructions, but I'd just like to have a more concrete definition of the difference/usages.

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  • As far as I know, してくれる is not a request form, but an action that someone does in your favour. E.g. むすめが朝ごはんを作ってくれる。
    – jarmanso7
    Sep 29, 2019 at 12:11
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    Yeah for the most part it's used like that, but if you make it into a question it can also be a form of requesting, like それをくれるの？ to mean 'Can/will you give me that?'
    – Genzou
    Sep 29, 2019 at 12:30

1 Answer 1

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しろ and しなさい are strong instruction words.

して and してくれ are words for requesting something friendly. してくれる? is more polite than them. してください is more polite than してくれる?. してくれて is unnatural.

There are some more polite ways of saying it such as してくれませんか? and していただけますか?

Dictionary form is just saying what you do rather than suggestions and instructions.

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  • I appreciate you differentiating the list of requesting/instruction words, it helps a lot, but I still don't quite understand using the dictionary form in this context. ノーマルモードをクリアする isn't something I've done yet and it may never happen, so 'I will clear normal mode' doesn't make a lot of sense (atleast I don't think so), especially because it isn't something I've said/written.
    – Genzou
    Sep 29, 2019 at 17:56
  • It means "You clear normal mode.". Does it make sense? It is what you must do.
    – Yuuichi Tam
    Sep 29, 2019 at 20:33
  • Yeah I guess that makes sense, I just thought there might be a different meaning to it. Thanks for the help.
    – Genzou
    Sep 29, 2019 at 21:29

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