〜てやる do for (blunt benefactive): Meaning & Examples

How 〜てやる works

弟に自転車を直してやった is “I fixed my little brother’s bike.” It also has a second life that has nothing to do with favours: attached to your own action it becomes a declaration of intent with an edge, 今度は絶対に勝ってやる (“This time I’m going to win”). Read it everywhere in fiction; say it almost nowhere.

構文こうぶんConstruction

• Verb (て-form) + やる

  弟に自転車を直してやった。 — I fixed my little brother’s bike.

• Toward animals and small children

  猫のために窓を開けてやった。 — I opened the window for the cat.

• Determination or defiance about your OWN action

  今度は絶対に勝ってやる。 — This time I’m definitely going to win.

• The negative carries a threat

  もう二度と話してやらない。 — I’m never speaking to them again.

例文れいぶんIn a sentence

注意点ちゅういてんNuances

• やる looks downward, so using it about a colleague — let alone anyone senior — is genuinely rude. Keep it for people you would speak to like a child.
• The determination use is what you will meet most in manga, anime and novels, and it is not a favour at all: 勝ってやる is bravado aimed at a rival.
• Fiction uses 〜てやる to signal a rough, boyish or defiant voice, and men use it more freely than women. That is characterisation, not a rule you have to copy.
• The same やる is an ordinary verb meaning “give” (downward) and “do”: 花に水をやる, 宿題をやる. Recognising that keeps the benefactive from feeling arbitrary.

練習れんしゅうYour Turn

Tip

Write one sentence doing something kind for a pet or a younger sibling with 〜てやった, then one line of pure bravado with 〜てやる. Notice which of the two you might realistically say out loud.

〜てやる (do for (blunt benefactive)) in real sentences

Each one is quoted from a published Japanese text in this library and links to the story it came from. Some use older spellings, or break off where the sentence carried on. They are transcribed exactly as their authors wrote them.

Appears in 10 of 367 texts in our library.