He found it hard to put his ideas across to his students.
Is using もらう in this way in this sentence a standard way of expressing “getting (someone) to (do something)”?
How would this method differ in connotation as compared with using the passive form, i.e.「彼は学生たちに彼の考えがわかられることが困難だとわかった。」？
Could you also add もらう to the passive construction, i. e. 「彼は学生たちに彼の考えがわかられてもらうことが困難だとわかった。」
@ericaw
Yes, もらう is a very common expression as you explained. ～してもらう means either 1) “to be done X by others in a happy way”; or 2) “to manage to make/let others X”. The image of もらう is like “absorbing/penetrating (a new idea etc.) into others through a receptor/channel”. もらう is also spelled as 貰う. あげる and 貰う are “to give” and “to take”. もらう, therefore, has a connotation of gratitude.
If you replace 分かってもらう with 分かられる (i.e. a simple passive form), the altered sentence even implies that “his ideas were secrets but now they are revealed to his students”. A passive form in Japanese has a wider range of meanings than English, one of which has the connotation of “victimization”. Therefore, 分かられる in this particular sentence means “unwillingly disclosed to his students”, which doesn’t make sense.
分かられてもらう is grammatically incorrect and sounds very unnatural. もらう itself is a sort of passive form. 分かられる is also a passive form. You cannot reduplicate it.
The original Japanese sentence sounds like a robotic unnatural word-for-word translation, though. 分かってもらうことが困難だ is very wordy. My alternative translation is:
彼は自身の考えを生徒/学生に浸透させるのは難しいと気付いた。（かれはじしんのかんがえをせいとせいと/がくせいにしんとうさせるのはむずかしいときづいた。）
The original translation doesn’t fully capture the nuance of “across”. 浸透させる means “make something widely spread”. 生徒 ranges from elementary school students to high school students (i.e. exclude university students). 学生 can cover the range of 生徒 as well as university students.