Learn Japanese From Some Guy - Chapter 58: The Passive Voice

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Hello fellow Japanese learners and welcome to another episode of Learn Japanese From Some Guy!

This is a special lesson because it marks the end of my series using my textbook. I plan on continuing with my Japanese teaching videos, but I am not quire sure what I am going to do. If you have any suggestions, please be sure to let me know in the comments.

Anyway, today we are going to learn a rather high-level grammar structure; the passive voice. While being 'high-level,' it is also quite easy.

For Type-I verbs, we simply change the final character to its あ-equivalent, and add れる.

読む　－－　読まれる
作る　－－　作られる
打つ　－－　打たれる

For Type-II verbs, all we have to do is append られる to the verb's ます-stem.

食べる　－－　食べられる
見る　－－　見られる
着る　－－　着られる

Of course, our Type-III verbs are a littel special, but remembering them is quite easy.

する　－ー　される
来る　－－　来られる　（こられる） please notice the こ　

We use this structure when we want to explain to whom an action was done by. That sounds kind of strange, I know, so we'll let at an example.

non-passive voice: 猫が牛乳を飲みました。　ねこがぎゅうにゅうをのみました。　The cat drank the milk.

passive voice: 牛乳は二個に飲まれました。　ぎゅうにゅうはねこにのまれました。The milk was drunk by the cat.

We'll go into further detail in the lesson.

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よろしくお願いします！

[shaunaobrien]

This was extremely useful. Thank you so much. I loved having the activities to do, and everything was explained so clearly, especially the particles. Looking forward to checking out your other videos 😊

[fontolan]

Very Helpful.
Do you have any similar videos on the Causative Form ?

[OsakaJoe]

It seems two grammar structures are being obscured here by calling it the "passive voice, " and their actors are obscured by calling a verb + れる/られる a single "conjugation."

れる/られる are verbs in their own right known as the "receptive helper verb, " of which the は/が marked element is always an active, not passive subject. Receiving is an active, not passive action, and れる/られる always marks the action being received. 受け身 is, therefore, not a "passive" structure, it is an active structure, which would be better called the "receptive form."

The second structure being obscured here is what the Japanese call 迷惑受け身 or "nuisance receptive."

ケーキが誰かに食べられた。
The cake got ("was" if you insist on making it "passive") eaten by someone.
に isn't marking the "doer" of the action, it's marking the source; the doer is the cake, and the action is receiving of another action, of which the source is "somebody."

太郎は(彼が)犬にケーキを食べられた。
As for Taro (he) got his cake eaten by the dog.
Giving a person は/が and marking the cake with を changes who the subject, the actor of a sentence is, doesn't it. The cake is no longer the receiver of an action, it's Taro. Taro got his cake eaten by the dog. This is 迷惑受け身, of "nuisance receptive." "Got" is considered grammatically incorrect English, but this is exactly what's happening in the Japanese structure.

This isn't a passive structure, it's an active structure. Two active structures. The receptive and nuisance receptive.

And verb + れる/られる isn't the "conjugation" of a single verb; it's the combination of two separate verbs, each performed by someone different.

[nleo]

For the type 2 verbs, the passive form is same as the potential form... how does one differentiate ? By context?

[cc]

Thanks for the upload! More "sexy editions" are welcome! ^^

[steamsaltyrs]

At 13:45 there is a furigana missing on