もらう
 

I've noticed this in one of my books

X は Y に本をもらいました
X received a book from Y

The Y に confuses me. shouldn't it be Y から？Or is this how it's said in Japanese?

Ta :vsign:

We say both actually, but we probably say に more often.

もらう and あげる are the key verbs for the mastery of natural-sounding Japanese. Learn this pair well now and you will thank yourself later on.

Can you say the same thing as X は Y に本をもらいました using あげる?　

Yeah, it is basically the same

X はY に本をあげました。
X はY に本をあげた。

I already knew あげる. Just at first, the に particle was confusing to a native English speaker but I understand now. I will default to using に with もらう!

Many thanks!

could we also use うけとる　as to recieve? is that one common?

Wrong! Good thing I asked. You would be forced to eat a wasabi ball if this was on a Japanese gameshow. :D

You need to switch X and Y when you replace あげる by もらう.

X はY に本をあげた　＝　Y はX に本をもらった

In both sentences, Y is the recepient of the book.

Grammatically, yes. The nuance, however, will be different. うけとる sounds kind of business-like.

If you receive a birthday present from someone, you will NOT say プレゼントをうけとった. It sounds like you aren't too happy or something.

Haha know what, I came back on here because I thought back to that. I realised my mistake but you beat me to it! Bah!

But yeah, I understand how to use them, don't worry.

And eating a wasabi ball is no punishment to me. I love the pain :mtongue:

Sashimister is a native Japanese speaker. I'd hope he's right!

PS I saw a Korean-Japanese drama starring Kyoko Fukada and Won Bin once (called "Friends"). He was pretty good in it.

Just so you know, there are more than もらう and あげる. There is basically (I forgot there were this many!) やる、あげる、さしあげる、もらう、くださる、くれる 、いただく. These are, in various ways, "to give" and "to receive." They're also important when saying if someone performed an action for another.

There are subtle ways in which you use these, and it's a bit daunting at first to learn them.

You already know one more than likely: くださる.
食べてください！ Please eat it! (lit. something like "Give me you eating it!" to display the function of くださる there)
ピザをください Please give me pizza.
食べてくださる to eat for another person (not in the pregnancy sense AFAIK)
etc.

Cheers,

I'm aware of the uses of くださる and the use of どうぞ when giving something to someone. I'll probably come across the others at some point.