Xjyuk

こんにちは、みなさん！

Hey guys, so, I'm familiar with the verb '聞く' when translating the verb 'to ask', as in for information. But, what about when asking/requesting someone to do something? (Similar to 'preguntar/pedir' in Spanish)

I've seen the verb '頼む' before, but I'm not sure how to use it nor if it's even the correct verb to use.

Let's look at the following sentences:

1. I played football on Wednesday because my friend asked me to.


2. My brother asked me to play football

My attempts:

1. 私の友達は私に頼みましたから、水曜日にサッカーをしました。


2. 兄は私にサッカーを....?

Thanks in advance guys!

よろしくお願いします！

When you want to ask/tell someone to do something else, you use the pattern 〜<thing to do verb>ように<ask/tell verb>. So your second example would be

兄は私がサッカーをするように（私に）頼みました

Notice that it's 私が for the thing you are being asked to do, and 私に to indicate who he asked. Since both of them are 私, you can safely omit the 私に because it's just redundant at that point.

Also, your first sentence contains some redundancies and a mistake. It should be

友達が頼みましたから、（私は)水曜日にサッカーをしました

The 私の and 私に are again redundant. But the topic of the sentence is you and what you did, so this is where the は should go, and what your friend did should be marked with が. However, it's implied that you're the one playing soccer, so you can omit the 私は.

I played football on Wednesday because my friend asked me to.

(私は友達にやろうと言われたから水曜日にサッカーをした。) or (私は友達に頼まれたから水曜日にサッカーをした。)

The former one sounds like the friend said “Let’s play football!”

As for the latter one, “I beg you!”

My brother asked me to play football.

(私は兄にサッカーをやらないか聞かれた。) or (私は兄にサッカーをやってほしいと言われた。)

The difference is the same as the first sentence.

You can make 私 the Subject, but it sounds like a sentence in a novel.

Usually we don’t want to say the subject, so we often make 私 the subject so that we can abbreviate it.

My attempts are:

1(a) 友達に頼まれて水曜日にサッカーをした。

1(b) 友達に誘われて水曜日にサッカーをした。

You can use either to mean the same, but I like 1(b) better because 1(a) could mean that, when you were asked, you were reluctant but your friend talked you into playing soccer. Off course, saying 1(b) does not exclude such possibility but at least it sounds more positive to me.

2(a) 兄（弟）にサッカーをしようと誘われた。

2(b) 兄（弟）にサッカーをしようと言われた。

Either is fine, and there are many other ways to say this.