What is the Passive Form?
The passive form flips the perspective of a sentence. Instead of "Tanaka ate the cake," it's "the cake was eaten by Tanaka." The subject isn't doing the action anymore. Something is being done to them.
Japanese passive works a lot like English passive, but it has an extra trick up its sleeve: the "suffering passive," where the subject is affected by someone else's action even though they weren't the direct target. More on that below. If you want to see how passive pairs with causative form, our lesson on passive and causative covers both side by side.
Conjugation Rules
The conjugation process starts the same way as the ない form -- you shift to the あ-row. But instead of adding ない, you add れる.
U-verbs (Group I)
Change the final う-row sound to its あ-row equivalent, then add れる. For verbs ending in う, replace with わ + れる:
| Dictionary | Passive |
|---|---|
| 買う (kau) | 買われる |
| 待つ (matsu) | 待たれる |
| 飲む (nomu) | 飲まれる |
| 泳ぐ (oyogu) | 泳がれる |
| 読む (yomu) | 読まれる |
| 書く (kaku) | 書かれる |
The pattern: う→われる, く→かれる, す→される, つ→たれる, む→まれる, ぶ→ばれる, ぐ→がれる, る→られる.
Ru-verbs (Group II)
Drop る, add られる:
| Dictionary | Passive |
|---|---|
| 食べる (taberu) | 食べられる |
| 信じる (shinjiru) | 信じられる |
| 寝る (neru) | 寝られる |
You might notice that ru-verb passive looks identical to the potential form. That's right -- 食べられる can mean "can eat" or "is eaten." Context makes it clear which one is meant. This overlap is actually one reason ら抜き (dropping ら) became popular in casual speech -- it removes the ambiguity for the potential meaning.
Irregular Verbs
| Dictionary | Passive |
|---|---|
| する | される |
| 来る (kuru) | こられる |
The Basic Pattern
The standard passive sentence follows this structure:
Subject は Actor に Verb(passive)
- 私は先生に褒められた。
I was praised by the teacher.
The actor (person doing the action) is marked with に. This is the most straightforward use, equivalent to English passive.
The Suffering Passive
This is where Japanese passive gets interesting. In the "suffering passive" (or indirect passive), the subject is negatively affected by someone else's action, even though that action wasn't directed at them. English doesn't really have this.
- 雨に降られた。
I got rained on. (The rain didn't target me, but I suffered from it.) - 電車で隣の人に足を踏まれた。
Someone stepped on my foot on the train.
The suffering passive is used with both transitive and intransitive verbs. It carries an inherent nuance of inconvenience or annoyance. You'll hear it all the time in daily conversation.
Passive Verbs Become Ru-verbs
Just like potential form verbs, once a verb is in passive form it behaves as a ru-verb. So you conjugate it further the easy way:
- 読まれる → 読まれます (polite)
- 食べられる → 食べられない (negative)
- される → された (past)
This means you can also combine passive with causative form to create the causative-passive.
Example Sentences
財布を盗まれた。
My wallet was stolen.
先生に名前を呼ばれた。
I was called by name by the teacher.
彼にケーキを食べられた。
He ate my cake (and I'm not happy about it).
雨に降られて、濡れてしまった。
I got rained on and ended up soaking wet.
この本は世界中で読まれている。
This book is read all over the world.
母に日記を読まれた。
My diary was read by my mom.
友達に嘘をつかれた。
I was lied to by my friend.
彼女は皆に愛されている。
She is loved by everyone.