In long conjugations like 聞かさせられる what does each character mean?
Like in 「している」 し represents an action て is something similar I think and いる means the verb is continuous at present
Is there a guide/lecture/article that explains this stuff. Everything I’ve read so far is just like “That’s how it is” and not “That’s why it is”
3 comments
When you come across a complicated conjugation, determine the base verb and then attempt to recreate the conjugation. For example, if you see 聞かせられる (your version btw is wrong), you should be thinking: 聞く (to hear) -> 聞かせる (to let someone hear) -> 聞かせられる (was made/let to hear). 聞く is a bit weird because it’s causative form is often listed as its own word/dictionary entry (to persuade, inform, tell, etc; you can see how it’s related to “let hear”), but the logic stands regardless.
For している, the し and て do not represent anything. This is simply a direct conjugation to the ている form.
not a guide but, one thing is, there is a cure dolly video which explained the bits at the end as “helper verbs” and then it kind of makes more sense, especially how some of the particles work with some of the conjugations (you know…the ones which change particles on you)
EDIT: See reply below for link
What helped me the most was just working through the grammar lessons, like Genki or Bunpro. By N4 you should have a pretty good grasp of these basic conjugations.