Learn Hardcore Chinese: māma ràng wǒ chūlái chī wǎnfàn.

let / allow: giving permission
- 妈妈让我出去玩。
  → Mom let me go out to play.
make / have: ordering or requiring someone to do something
- 老师让我们写作业。
  → The teacher made / had / told us to do homework.
ask / tell (politely)
- 妈妈让我出来吃晚饭。
  → Mom told / asked me to come out and eat dinner.

In this sentence, it is not about permission (not Mom allowed me), but about telling / asking you to come out to eat. So the natural English is:

Mom asked me to come out for dinner.
Mom told me to come out and eat dinner.

The core pattern is:

让 + someone + do something
(cause someone to do something)

Is 妈妈让我出来吃晚饭 about permission, like Mom let me, or is it more like Mom told me to?

Here it is instruction / request, not permission.

If it were about permission, the English would be:
Mom let me come out to eat dinner (I wanted to, she allowed it).
In normal daily Chinese, 妈妈让我出来吃晚饭 is used when:
- You are in your room, studying, on the computer, etc.
- Mom calls you: 出来吃晚饭！
- You report this: 妈妈让我出来吃晚饭。
  → Mom told / asked me to come out for dinner.

So you should understand this sentence as Mom told me / asked me to come out and eat dinner, not as Mom allowed me.

Why is 出来 (chūlái) placed before 吃晚饭 (chī wǎnfàn)? Can I say 妈妈让我吃晚饭出来?

You cannot say 妈妈让我吃晚饭出来; that word order is wrong.

Structure in the original sentence:

妈妈让我出来吃晚饭
- 妈妈: subject (Mom)
- 让: causative verb (to cause / tell / ask)
- 我: object (me)
- 出来: directional complement (come out)
- 吃晚饭: verb + object (eat dinner)

Key point: In Chinese, directional complements like 出来 / 出去 / 上来 / 下去 come directly after the verb they belong to:

出 + 来 → 出来 (to come out)
You cannot move 出来 to the very end of the clause.

So the pattern is:

让 + 我 + 出来 + 吃晚饭
(cause me to come out to eat dinner)

If you put 出来 at the end:

让 + 我 + 吃晚饭 + 出来 ✗ (ungrammatical)

that breaks the verb‑complement structure, so it sounds wrong to native speakers.

What is the difference between 出来 (chūlái) and 出去 (chūqù), and why is 出来 used here?

Both have the base verb 出 (to go out), plus a direction:

出来 (chūlái): come out (movement toward the speaker or a reference point)
出去 (chūqù): go out (movement away from the speaker or reference point)

In this sentence, imagine:

You are in your room.
Mom is outside your room, maybe in the living room or dining room.
From her point of view, she wants you to come out (toward her).

So she says:

出来吃晚饭 → come out (toward where dinner is) and eat dinner.

If she were talking about you leaving the house to eat outside (e.g., at a restaurant), she might say:

出去吃晚饭 → go out to eat dinner (outside the house).

Can I leave out 出来 and just say 妈妈让我吃晚饭? How does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can say:

妈妈让我吃晚饭。
→ Mom told me to eat dinner.

Differences:

妈妈让我吃晚饭
- Focus: Mom wants you to eat dinner.
- No information about where you are or where you go.
妈妈让我出来吃晚饭
- Focus: Mom wants you to come out (e.g., leave your room) and eat dinner.
- There is an extra nuance of movement from inside to another space (like the dining room).

So 出来 adds a spatial / directional idea: leave where you currently are and come out to the place of eating.

In English we say ask me to come out for dinner. Why is there no word like for / to before 吃晚饭 in Chinese?

Chinese does not need a linking word like to or for in this kind of structure.
Instead, it uses a series of verbs (serial verb construction):

出来 → come out
吃晚饭 → eat dinner

So:

妈妈让我出来 吃晚饭
Mom made me come out eat dinner

Literally (in Chinese order):

Mom cause me come‑out eat dinner.

English grammar requires a to:
Mom asked me to come out to eat dinner.

Chinese simply puts the actions one after another without a linking word:

Verb 1: 出来 (come out)
Verb 2: 吃 (eat)
Object: 晚饭 (dinner)

This is a very common pattern in Chinese:

他请我去他家吃饭。
→ He invited me to go to his house to eat.
(Chinese: 请我去他家吃饭 — no linking words.)

What is the basic grammar pattern of 妈妈让我出来吃晚饭?

The core pattern is:

让 + person + verb phrase

So this sentence is:

Subject: 妈妈 (Mom)
Causative verb: 让 (to cause / tell / ask)
Object (the person caused to act): 我 (me)
Verb phrase (what I am caused to do): 出来吃晚饭 (come out and eat dinner)

So structurally:

妈妈 (subject)
让 (causative verb)
我 (object, the one who will act)
出来吃晚饭 (what I am caused to do)

Another similar example:

老师让我们站起来回答问题。
- 老师: teacher
- 让: makes / tells
- 我们: us
- 站起来回答问题: stand up and answer the question

Pattern:

Subject + 让 + person + do‑something

How do I make it clearly past or clearly future? There is no tense marking in the Chinese sentence.

Chinese does not mark tense the way English does; it relies on context, time words, and sometimes aspect particles like 了.

To show past clearly, you can add 了 or a time word:

昨天妈妈让我出来吃晚饭。
→ Yesterday Mom asked me to come out for dinner.
妈妈让我出来吃晚饭了。
→ (Context‑dependent, often: Mom has already asked me to come out for dinner.)

To show future / planned, add words like 会 / 要:

妈妈要让我出来吃晚饭。
→ Mom is going to ask / will ask me to come out and eat dinner.
等一会儿妈妈会让我出来吃晚饭。
→ In a moment Mom will ask me to come out for dinner.

But very often, 妈妈让我出来吃晚饭 can refer to past, present, or near future, depending entirely on context:

Said while it is happening / just happened:
→ Mom is telling me / just told me to come out for dinner.

Chinese leaves tense much more to context than English does.

Can I replace 让 with 叫 (jiào) or 告诉 (gàosu) here? What is the difference?

You can replace 让 with 叫, but 不能 (cannot) simply replace it with 告诉 in the same structure.

叫 (jiào) here is very similar to 让:
- 妈妈叫我出来吃晚饭。
  → Mom called me / told me to come out and eat dinner.
In many everyday contexts, 让 and 叫 are interchangeable when used as causative verbs:
- 让/叫 + someone + do something
Subtle nuance:
- 叫 can sound a bit more colloquial or like call / shout to someone.
- 让 can sound slightly more neutral or polite, and also covers the allow / let meaning.
告诉 (gàosu) means to tell / to inform, and its pattern is different:
- 告诉 + someone + something (a piece of information)
So you could say:
- 妈妈告诉我要出来吃晚饭。
  → Mom told me that I should come out for dinner.
Here:
- 告诉我: told me
- 要出来吃晚饭: that I should come out and eat dinner
But you cannot say:
- ✗ 妈妈告诉我出来吃晚饭。 (unnatural / ungrammatical)
Unless you add something like 要 / 去 to make it sound like reported speech or an instruction:

Why is there no measure word before 晚饭 (wǎnfàn)? When would I need a measure word?

In this sentence, 晚饭 is used as a general meal name: dinner, not a specific countable dish. In that case, no measure word is needed:

吃早饭: eat breakfast
吃午饭: eat lunch
吃晚饭: eat dinner

These are like meal names and act almost like uncountable nouns here.

You use a measure word when you are counting or talking about a specific instance or portion:

一顿饭: one meal
一顿晚饭: one dinner / a dinner
一餐晚饭: one dinner (more formal / written)

Examples:

我请你吃一顿晚饭。
→ I will treat you to a dinner.

In 妈妈让我出来吃晚饭, the focus is on the activity of having dinner now, so no measure word is needed or natural.

Could I omit 我 and just say 妈妈让出来吃晚饭 if it is obvious she is talking to me?

No, you cannot omit 我 here. 让 here needs an explicit object (the person being caused to act):

Correct:

妈妈让我出来吃晚饭。
→ Mom told me to come out and eat dinner.

Incorrect:

✗ 妈妈让出来吃晚饭。

Without 我, the sentence is incomplete because 让 must have:

who is caused: 我
what they do: 出来吃晚饭

You can omit pronouns in Chinese when they are subjects and clear from context, but not usually when they are required objects of a verb like 让 in this pattern.

How do I say the negative version, like Mom would not let me / told me not to go out to eat dinner?

You can negate 让 itself or negate the action that follows.

Mom did not allow / does not allow me to go out to eat dinner
→ Negate 让: 不让
- 妈妈不让我出去吃晚饭。
  → Mom does not let me go out to eat dinner.
  (e.g., at a restaurant, or outside the house)
Mom told me not to come out to eat dinner
→ Negate the action with 别 / 不要
- 妈妈让我别出来吃晚饭。
- 妈妈让我不要出来吃晚饭。
Both mean: → Mom told me not to come out to eat dinner.
Structure:
- 让 + 我 + 别 / 不要 + Verb phrase

So you can control whether you are negating:

the permission / causation (不让)
or
the action itself (让…别 / 不要 + verb).