culpabiliser

[alan gould]

I just learned this word.  my dictionary has it as "to feel guilty" -- Je culpabilise -- I feel guilty.  It then has "to make someone feel guilty" as both "culpabiliser" and "faire qn culpabiliser."  are both correct?  is there a distinction?      

[George Hunt]

That was new to me.I thought it would only work as to mean "make someone feel guilty"

Apparently it also means "to feel guilty (yourself)" .

What kind of a distinction do you mean? There are 2 separate meanings.

I found a discussion of this  particular subject   on another forum 

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2092776

[Christine]

I've always used "faire culpabiliser qn" for the second meaning, but you made me wonder. After searching a bit, it appears that both are correct, and without a distinction.

[joeeoj]

both are correct. je culpabilise = I feel guilty. je te culpabilise = I make you feel guilty

 

[Jérôme X]

Actually, "Je te culpabilise" does not exist. The closest meaning is "Je te fais culpabiliser". ;)

[George Hunt]

Are you quite sure?

There seem to be lots (many thousands) of instances of that exact phrase in Google -far,far more than of "Je te fais culpabiliser".

[Christine]

That's what I thought too, given that I've never used this form. But "culpabiliser quelqu'un" appears to be correct.

At least, the Larousse says so, as well as the Académie française (though you need to do the search in this one).

[Neil Coffey]

One translation used by at least one EU translator for the active form of "culpabiliser" is "lay guilt on": http://www.translationexamples.com/ex/fr-en/culpabiliser and I wonder if this helps to capture whatever slight difference there is: that faire culpabiliser quelqu'un means something like 'subtly induce a feeling of guilt/responsibility in somebody', whereas culpabiliser quelqu'un suggests a more active process of 'blaming', 'transferring/associating guilt'?