In short

English has one verb “give”; Japanese has two, and which one you use depends on which way the thing moves relative to you. あげる ageru moves it away from you, くれる kureru moves it toward you, and もらう morau tells the same event from the receiver’s side. Stack these on a て-form and they stop being about objects and start being about favours: 手伝ってくれました tetsudatte kuremashita - “you were kind enough to help me.”

The rule

Japanese sorts people into ウチ uchi (“inside” - me, my family, my company, whoever I am speaking for right now) and ソト soto (“outside” - everyone else). Every giving verb is chosen by the direction of travel across that line. The line moves with the conversation: talking to a customer, my colleague is ウチ; talking to my family at home, that same colleague is ソト.

Step 1 - Decide who ends up holding the thing. If it lands outside your group, you need あげる. If it lands inside your group, you need くれる.

Step 2 - Decide whose story you are telling. If you want the receiver as the subject, use もらう instead.

あげる - away from me. Giver は／が + recipient に + thing を + あげます. 私は友達に花をあげました。 (Watashi wa tomodachi ni hana o agemashita.) - “I gave my friend flowers.” あげる also covers third-party-to-third-party giving that has nothing to do with you: 田中さんは山田さんに本をあげました。

くれる - toward me. Giver は／が + (私に) + thing を + くれます. 友達が本をくれました。 (Tomodachi ga hon o kuremashita.) - “My friend gave me a book.” When the recipient is you, くれる is not optional - ×友達が私に本をあげた is simply wrong, not merely impolite. And because くれる already says “to me”, the 私に is usually dropped.

もらう - the receiver’s version. Receiver は／が + source に／から + thing を + もらいます. 母にかばんをもらいました。 (Haha ni kaban o moraimashita.) - “I got a bag from my mother.” Both に and から mark the source; から is preferred when the source is an organisation rather than a person (会社からもらいました), and whenever に might be misread as a destination.

Deference variants - recognise them now, use them later. Each verb has a polite replacement used when the other person outranks you. Full treatment is in the keigo lessons; here, just learn to read them.

• さしあげる sashiageru - humble あげる. Use sparingly: offering to give a superior something can sound presumptuous.
• くださる kudasaru - honorific くれる. Irregular: the polite form is くださいます kudasaimasu, never ×くださります. The familiar ください is this verb’s imperative.
• いただく itadaku - humble もらう, and by far the most-used of the three.

Now the benefactive: V-て + these verbs. The object being handed over is no longer a thing but an action done for someone’s benefit. The te-form is fixed; only the giving verb conjugates.

• 〜てあげる - I do something for someone else. Grammatically fine, socially loaded: it announces that you are doing a favour, so saying it to the beneficiary can sound condescending, as if inviting thanks. Compare 持ってあげましょうか (“shall I do you the kindness of carrying it?”) with the neutral, natural 持ちましょうか (“shall I carry it?”). Use 〜てあげる when describing what you did to a third person, and prefer plain 〜ましょうか when offering.
• 〜てくれる - someone did something for me. No such problem: this is the ordinary, warm way to report a kindness, and the standard base for thanks - 助けてくれてありがとうございます (Tasukete kurete arigatō gozaimasu.). Leaving it out and saying only 助けました reports a bare fact with no gratitude in it.
• 〜てもらう - I got someone to do something for me. The beneficiary is the subject and the doer takes に. It covers both “I had X do it” and “X kindly did it for me” - the emphasis is on you receiving the benefit.

The particle on the beneficiary comes from the main verb, not from the giving verb. 教える takes に (妹に教えてあげました), 手伝う takes を (私を手伝ってくれました), 待つ takes を (私を待ってくれました). Do not force に onto every benefactive.

The request ladder. Real requests are built on くれる and もらう, not on ください alone. Two knobs make a request politer: switch to the potential (もらえる moraeru, いただける itadakeru - “could I receive?”) and switch to the negative question, which leaves the hearer room to decline.

Flagged forward: combining this with the causative gives 〜させてもらう 〜sasete morau (“let me do it” / “I’ll take the liberty of”), the polite way to ask permission for your own action - see lesson 46.

Forms & patterns

The three verbs and their frames.

Deference levels - same direction, different social height.

Who is the subject? This is the main error source, so read the table before you write the sentence.

Note that the last two describe the same event. Only the camera angle differs.

The request ladder, least to most polite. All of these mean “please do it”.

The pattern is mechanical: longer = politer. Each rung adds one knob to the same small set of giving verbs - first ます, then the negative, then the potential of もらう, then the humble いただく.

Examples

Common mistakes

• 友達が私に本をあげました。 (Tomodachi ga watashi ni hon o agemashita.) -> 友達が私に本をくれました。 (Tomodachi ga watashi ni hon o kuremashita.) - あげる can never point at the speaker’s own group. When the thing arrives with me, くれる is obligatory.
• 友達に本をくれました。 (Tomodachi ni hon o kuremashita.) -> 友達が本をくれました。 (Tomodachi ga hon o kuremashita.) - with くれる the giver is the subject and takes が. に marks the recipient - here that would say the friend received it.
• 友達が私に写真を撮ってもらいました。 (Tomodachi ga watashi ni shashin o totte moraimashita.) -> 私は友達に写真を撮ってもらいました。 (Watashi wa tomodachi ni shashin o totte moraimashita.) - with もらう the subject is the one who benefits. The doer goes in the に slot.
• 荷物を持ってあげましょうか。 (Nimotsu o motte agemashō ka.) -> 荷物を持ちましょうか。 (Nimotsu o mochimashō ka.) - grammatical, but announcing your own favour to its beneficiary sounds like you are fishing for thanks. Offer with plain 〜ましょうか.
• もう一度説明してもらいませんか。 (Mō ichido setsumei shite moraimasen ka.) -> もう一度説明してもらえませんか。 (Mō ichido setsumei shite moraemasen ka.) - a request needs the potential もらえる (“could I receive”). もらいません just says “I won’t receive it”.

Tips

• Let the shape of くれる remind you where it points. ください - the word you already use to ask for something to come to you - is the imperative of くださる, the honorific twin of くれる. If the arrow ends at you or your people, it is くれる - and then 私に is redundant, so drop it.
• Japanese thanks with the verb, not with an adjective. Where English says “thanks, that was kind”, Japanese loads the kindness into 〜てくれる: 教えてくれてありがとう, 待ってくれてありがとう. A sentence that reports someone’s help without くれる (手伝いました) sounds oddly flat, like a police report.
• 〜てあげる is the one to be shy about. The other two are safe in almost any sentence; 〜てあげる draws attention to your own generosity. Use it about third parties (弟に作ってあげました), and drop it when speaking to the person you are helping.
• Build requests by stacking, not by memorising. Take もらう -> potential もらえる -> polite もらえます -> negative もらえません -> question もらえませんか. The same four moves on いただく give the boardroom-level 〜ていただけませんか.