According to this answer, "This made me laugh" would translate literally into Japanese as:
これが僕{ぼく}を笑{わら}わせた。
However, the same answer explains that this would be an odd thing to say in Japanese, because the Japanese language tends to avoid using an "inanimate subject".
As far as I know, in English we don't have any preference for whether or not a subject is animate or inanimate, though I could be wrong about that. I don't know how English works, I just think with it, and maybe I make unconscious habitual choices.
In any case, I have no conceptual model for this inanimate/animate subject distinction, and, as far as I can remember in all my years of studying Japanese, this is the first time it's ever come up for me.
How strange is a statement like これが僕{ぼく}を笑{わら}わせた? Are there examples where the animate/inanimate distinction would lead to unparsable statements, or is it just mildly awkward sounding?
"This made me laugh" in English is a perfectly acceptable statement, but are there parallels in English to the Japanese distinction between animate and inanimate subjects that would help me conceptualize what is happening in Japanese?
Answer
My understanding is that it's a matter of intent. In English, you'd never say "The car went to work" because cars can't do things. People may make the car do things, but the person was the intent behind the action.
Japanese expands this concept so that "this thing made me laugh" is weird since things largely have no intent. Perhaps "this thing is amusing" since that holds no intent or perhaps "the fates amuse me (with this thing)".
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