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I don’t fully understand this sentence:
おとうさん に １万円 を かしました。
I know that i means “I lent 10,000 yen to my dad.” But I don’t understand the に part. I kind of know when to use the particle に but the usage in this context dosen’t make any sense to me.
Thanks!
Non-grammar-heavy, but not strictly correct explanation: に indicates the direction of the verb. In the same sense as 公園に行った means “I went to the park”, お父さんに貸した means “I lent it to my dad”.
Grammar answer: に marks the indirect object of the sentence – the indirect object is an entity that’s indirectly affected by the doing of the verb, for example, as in this case, the benificiary of “giving” and “recieving” verbs. Remember, を marks the direct object, which is the entity to which the verb is done. So in this case, you’re lending the money (= direct object) to your father (= indirect object).
As I think of it, the を indicates what thing is affected by the verb. So if you see the word you can ask what is “verbed,” and the を will give you the answer. Okay this didn’t make sense. If you have the sentence すし を たべました (ate sushi), you can look at the verb (たべます) and ask: What will (you) eat, and を gives you the answer which is すし. If we say おとうさん に 一万円 に かしました, we can ask what did you lent? を answers 一万円.
に works the same way just with another question. Here you just ask the question to what(or who or where) did you do the verb? So if we say “おとうさん に 一万円 に かしました” again we can ask: To what/who/where did you lent 一万円, and に gives us the answer おとうさん.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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