文法：〜される（受身形・Passive Tense）
Most sentences describing an action have two parts, the Doer of an action, and the Target. In most sentences, the Doer also happens to be the subject of a sentence, and the Target is the object. This is the active voice.
（私は）ケーキを食べました。 I ate the cake.
The passive tense occurs when a sentence is reordered so that the Target becomes the grammatical subject, and the verb "is done" to it by the Doer.
ケーキが（私に）食べられました。 The cake was eaten (by me).
Notice that cake changes from the subject particle を to the subject particle が (or topic particle は) . The original subject of the sentence, if it is mentioned, can be marked by に, から, or によって. The standard particle is に, but から can be used when there is no physical contact, or to avoid the confusion of using に too many times. It also only works when both the Target and Doer are people.. によって has a slightly more formal feel, and is used to describe creating or discovering something for the first time. (*, *, *)
Of course both Target and Doer may be omitted from the sentence, but it's best to keep the following structure in mind:
Target は・が Doer に (Passive Verb)
- 回しすぎた 【彼が彼女を回しすぎた】 - Too much spinning 【He spun her too much】
- 回されすぎた 【彼女が彼に回されすぎた】 - Spun around too much 【She was spun around by him too much】
(『月刊少女野崎くん』 Girl’s Monthly Nozaki-kun, vol. 1 by Izumi Tsubaki)
Passive Tense Conjugation
る verbs: Replace the る with られる
食べる → 食べられる
う verbs: Replace the -u sound with -aれる
買う → 買われる 読む → 読まれる 行く → 行かれる 急ぐ → 急がれる 立つ → 立たれる 死ぬ → 死なれる 帰る → 帰られる 遊ぶ → 遊ばれる 話す → 話される
Irregular verbs:
する → される 来る → こられる
Once in the passive tense, these verbs all conjugate as regular る verbs.
Notice the passive tense has a lot in common with the potential form, especially in the る-verbs. However, unlike the Potential form, you absolutely cannot get away with omitting the ら to make ら抜き言葉.
- 途中で眠くなって寝ちゃうかもしれんし - たたき起こします - たたかれます - She may get sleepy on the way and fall asleep. - Then I’ll hit her to wake her up. - I’ll get hit.
(『よつばと！』 Yotsuba&!, vol. 9 by Azuma Kiyohoko)
Shifting Focus
The passive tense is most commonly used when you want to shift the focus on the Target of an action, rather than the Doer. Maybe the culprit is unknown, or you’re deliberately omitting the culprit... especially if you were to go out of your way to make an intransitive verb passive, then there certainly must be a culprit.
Passive tense also works for maintaining the natural subject of a sentence, often the speaker themselves, or to keep the same subject between the two parts of a compound sentence, even when they are the Target of an action.
While in English, the passive voice is often seen as unwieldy (and when writing an essay for class, you may be explicitly told to use the active voice), there are still times when it’s necessary in English too. As Stephen King once said, “An ax killed John” will never replace “John was killed with an ax.” When translating passive tense from Japanese into English, it’s important to keep in mind whether the passive voice would be natural or not for your translation.
In the following example, Nozaki is talking about his brother who remains the understood subject of the sentence in both clauses:
まぁ今のは冗談だけど昔は本当に喋らない奴でよくいじめられていてなぁ… （何か言えよ− 無視してんじゃねぇよー） Well now we joke about it, but long ago he really didn't talk, and (he) was often bullied for it… (Say something! Don’t ignore us!)
(『月刊少女野崎くん』 Girl’s Monthly Nozaki-kun, vol. 4 by Izumi Tsubaki)
Additionally, there are two uses of the passive tense unique to Japanese that explain why it is such a common aspect of the language.
Politeness
The passive tense comes across as more indirect, and therefore more polite, so it is often used in more formal types of writing, like articles or academic journals, and sometimes polite speech as well.
Here in this example, the teacher's speech would normally be どうしたんですか, but as she's speaking to a parent of a student, she uses the passive tense as an added layer of formality, mirrored by the "father"/brother's speech ending with an unfinished て form and the use of the word 災難 rather than 大変. (The second 間違われた is passive tense used to shift the focus to the speaker's experience.)
- 一体どうされたんですか？ - いやあ 娘の様子を見てたら不審者に間違われて - 災難でしたね - What on earth happened? - Oh, no, well, I was mistaken for a prowler while checking up on my daughter... - How unfortunate!
(『不滅のあなたへ』 To Your Eternity, vol. 15, by Oima Yoshitoki)
Victimhood--Indirect Passive
This can be called the indirect passive, or even the adversative passive, and it's used to describe actions that don't directly happen to you, but still have an effect on you. They usually describe unpleasant or inconvenient situations. The Target is almost always the speaker as an understood subject, who has been made the victim--if they appear in the sentence, they'll be marked with は／が. The aggressor of the action will be marked with に, but in some cases the passive verb may be in this case an intransitive verb that might not normally take objects. If it is a transitive verb, the object may still be marked with を and remain unchanged from the normal, non-passive version of the sentences.
（私は）雨に降られたの。 I was rained on.
宿題を犬に食べられました。 The dog ate my homework. (Notice since the victim in this sentence is you, homework maintains it’s object particle. In English, this one is more natural in the active voice.)
Here in this example, while She (Yotsuba) should grammatically be the subject and victim of the scolding, the reader so strongly identifies with Yotsuba that I feel the narration often edges toward the first person, emphasizing our connection to Yotsuba's victimhood.
おこられた Got scolded.
(『よつばと！』 Yotsuba&!, vol. 1 by Azuma Kiyohoko)
- じゃあ（お言葉に甘えて） - （どうしよう…そんな真剣に見られるなんて… 緊張してきた!!）あ…あの… - Well then… (If you insist) - (What do I do… Being stared at so intently like that… I’m getting nervous!!) U--um…
(『月刊少女野崎くん』 Girl’s Monthly Nozaki-kun, vol. 4 by Izumi Tsubaki)
Of course, you don’t always have to be on the receiving end of something terrible to use the passive voice!
そーなったら ここのねこをつかう！ いやされたー When I get like that, then I use this cat here! I’m calmed...!
(『よつばと！』 Yotsuba&!, vol. 6 by Azuma Kiyohoko)
J-Rock Examples:
テンパって裏切られてもまだ／まるで諦めてないんだろ? Even if I’m fed up and betrayed, / I haven’t completely given up yet, right? ［DOLL$BOXX – Take My Chance］
