欠席する 遅刻する 遅れる

[sartorimarika_497534]

Hi everybody,
I have some troubles about those three words: 欠席　遅刻　遅れる
I know the first one means "absence" but it requires the particle に? ex. 授業に欠席しました。
Can I leave it out if the context is obvious? ex. Aマークはいないんですね。Bええ、欠席しました。

Same doubt I have in the word 遅刻する

The third one,　遅れる
I know its meaning is "to be late" so it requires too the particle に and has to be specify to what is late?

[thegooseking]

satorimarikaさん、

The first one requires the particle に because 欠席する is not a transitive verb. You can't "be absent something"; you can only "be absent from something" - it's the same in Japanese. The に marks the indirect object, not the direct object. In English, transitive verbs are verbs that can take a direct object, which means that the object follows the verb without needing a preposition in between. But in Japanese, there is always a particle between the object and the verb. Generally speaking, transitive verbs take the particle を and intransitive verbs take some other particle, usually に (although there are a couple of exceptions in both cases).

For the second word, 遅刻, the same applies. You're normally "late for something", and not "late something". So the something is an indirect object, and takes に.

I'm not entirely sure what the difference between 遅刻する and 遅れる is. As before, though, it takes に because it's an intransitive verb (what you're late for is the indirect object).

(When I said it's the same in Japanese, it's not exactly the same, because in English, 'late' and 'absent' are adjectives, while in Japanese, 'to be late' and 'to be absent' are verbs. But I think any Japanese verb that would be translated into English as "to be [adjective]" will probably be intransitive... Though there probably are exceptions!)

In all three cases, you can omit the subject if it's obvious. It's generally safer to say who is absent or late, but it's more natural not to if it's clear from the context. In conversation it doesn't matter so much, because the person you're talking to can always ask for clarification if they need it, but in writing or formal speech you of course need to be more careful. You will sometimes hear Japanese people putting the subject at the end of the sentence. This can be used deliberately to emphasise the subject, or it can simply be because they started the sentence omitting the subject and then realised that the subject isn't actually that obvious.

I hope that helps.
小狼

[community.japanese]

小狼さん、

説明をどうもありがとうございました。

Sartorimarika　さん、
小狼 said 欠席するwas not a transitive verb however, it’s actually a transitive verb.
Therefore, you can say 授業を欠席する, too.

On the other hand,遅刻する and 遅れる are intransitive verbs so they need に.

The difference between 遅刻するand遅れる is that遅刻する is 漢語 and 遅れるis和語.
漢語 is a Japanese word of Chinese origin and和語 is a Japanese original word.
A compound word which means a two (more than two) kanji word tends to be 漢語.
Using 漢語 indicates “more sophisticated” because of the number of kanji.

Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com