Expressing Actions with the Passive Form

What is the Passive Form

The passive form in Japanese () is used when you want to describe an action from the perspective of the person or thing receiving the action, rather than the one performing it.

If the active sentence is "The dog bit me" (), the passive equivalent is "I was bitten by the dog" ().

In Japanese, the passive form serves two distinct functions:

• The Direct Passive: Functions similarly to English, shifting the focus to the receiver of an action.
• The Indirect Passive: A uniquely Japanese concept often called the "suffering passive," used to express that someone's action negatively affected or inconvenienced you.

Before diving into how these two usages work, you first need to know how to conjugate verbs into the passive form.

Conjugating Verbs into the Passive Form

Conjugating into the passive form depends on the verb group. Notice that all passive verbs end in , meaning once a verb is in the passive form, it behaves exactly like a regular Ru-verb (Ichidan) for any further conjugations.

Note: If some of these conjugations feel familiar, that's because the Ichidan conjugation is shared between the passive and potential form.
For more details on how you differentiate between them see: Differentiating Passive and Potential Forms.

Ru Verbs

For Ru-verbs (Ichidan), simply drop the final and attach .

U Verbs

For U-verbs (Godan), change the final "u" vowel sound to the "a" vowel sound of the same column in the hiragana chart, then add .

Exception: If the verb ends in the single vowel , it changes to (not あ) before adding .

• → (To be bought)
• → (To be said/told)

Irregular Verbs

The two irregular verbs must simply be memorized.

The Direct Passive

The direct passive is used just like the passive voice in English. It elevates the object of an action to the subject of the sentence.

In active sentences, the person doing the action is marked with or . In a passive sentence, the person receiving the action becomes the topic, and the original "doer" is usually marked by the particle (meaning "by"). For a deeper review of how particles mark different roles in a sentence, see Introduction to Japanese Particles.

Sentence structure: [Receiver] は [Doer] に [Passive Verb]

The Indirect Passive

The indirect passive is where Japanese diverges significantly from English. It is often referred to as the "suffering passive" because it implies that the subject was negatively affected, inconvenienced, or annoyed by someone else's action.

With the indirect passive, you can even use intransitive verbs (verbs that don't take a direct object, like crying, raining, or dying). In English, you cannot say "I was rained on by the rain," but in Japanese, this is a standard way to express being caught in a downpour.

Being Inconvenienced by an Action

If someone does something that indirectly causes you trouble, you use the passive form of that action.

Another common scenario is when someone interacts with your belongings without your permission or to your detriment. In this case, the object being affected remains marked with .

Literally translated, this would read "I was stolen bicycle by a thief." While this sounds broken in English, it perfectly encapsulates the Japanese perspective: you are the main subject experiencing the theft, the thief is the doer marked with , and the bicycle remains the object of the verb marked with .

Study Tips

The concept of the suffering passive can feel unnatural at first because it does not exist in English.

When you encounter a passive verb in your reading or listening, pay attention to the context. Usually, the tone or the situation will make it clear whether it is a simple statement of fact (direct passive) or a complaint about an inconvenience (indirect passive).

• Link with the て-Form: The passive form is frequently combined with the te-form. You will often see verbs conjugated as or to connect an unfortunate event to its result (e.g., "I was rained on, and so..."). Review the Connect ideas with the て-Form guide if you need a refresher on connecting ideas.
• Causative-Passive: Once you understand the passive form, the next logical step is the causative-passive (), which combines causative (making/letting) with passive (being made to do something). See The Causative-Passive Form to learn about expressing when you are forced to do something, or review the standard Making and Letting with the Causative Form for the basics of making and letting someone act.
• Exposure over Output: You do not need to actively practice creating suffering passive sentences right away. Focus on recognizing them. As you spend more time with immersion, the nuance of feeling "inconvenienced" by an action will begin to make intuitive sense without needing to overthink the grammar rules.