Give and Take (あげる・くれる・もらう)

あげる only works when the gift is moving away from you, either you giving to someone else, or one third party giving to another. It can’t describe something given to you, that direction belongs to くれる. Mixing the two up is one of the most common slips for English speakers, since English “give” never cares which way the gift is moving.

くれる always marks something moving toward the speaker or the speaker’s own in-group. Swap the subject to anyone outside that circle and the sentence stops making sense, you’d reach for あげる instead. This is the verb English quietly skips: “she gave me a suit” carries no built-in sense of direction, but 母はくれました does.

くれる and もらう can describe the exact same gift from two different angles. 母はスーツをくれました and 私は母にスーツをもらいました are both true about one suit, but くれる keeps the giver as the subject while もらう keeps the receiver as the subject. Neither is more correct, they just center a different person in the sentence, and に here means “from,” not “to,” context is the only thing that tells the two jobs apart.