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When conjugating an adjective to its causative form, the way to go about it is as follows. For example, 寂しい

寂しくしない (Won't let/make you lonely)

Question is, what happens if I use させない instead?

寂しくさせない

Doesn't this also mean "Won't let/make you lonely"?

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    I think maybe there is not enough context to decide, could you provide a full sentence for each. It is really hard to make sense of it when there is so much omission
    – Zeyuan
    May 23, 2020 at 5:21
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    @Zeyuan Just a sentence I thought of really. I just want to say a general "Won't let you be lonely" but am unsure which to use
    – Newbie
    May 23, 2020 at 5:51
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    Reminds me of this: Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you...
    – Toby Mak
    May 23, 2020 at 7:21
  • I think in this case 寂しく in 寂しくさせない describes the manner by which the action is done rather than the change that will take place due to the action. In other words, this translates more to "I, in a lonely manner, won't allow/cause (someone do something)/(something to happen)."
    – rebuuilt
    May 24, 2020 at 0:56
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    @rebuuilt If we go by that logic, wouldn't it apply in both cases?
    – Newbie
    May 24, 2020 at 1:13

1 Answer 1

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In a view of Japanese, just "寂しくしない" means "Won't let/make myself lonely" and just "寂しくさせない" means "Won't let/make you lonely".

Your context is "私はあなたを寂しくしない" = "I won't let/make you lonely". This is a usage of oral communication and not have sense of formal.

In this context, it is same meaning of "私はあなたを寂しくさせない", but this is a usage of written communication and have sense of formal.

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