Japanese Passive Form: Why It's Everywhere (And Not What You Think)

You've probably noticed that Japanese grammar throws passive voice at you constantly. Way more than English. Your textbook might have given you a few verb conjugation rules and called it a day, but that doesn't explain why you keep seeing these passive verb endings everywhere in anime, manga, and actual conversations.

Here's the thing: the Japanese passive form isn't just "the thing that was done to someone." It's about how that thing affected you, how you felt about it, and—yeah—how to be polite without sounding like a robot. The passive form carries emotional nuance that English passive doesn't have. Once you understand that, a ton of confusing passive sentences suddenly make sense.

What the Japanese Passive Form Actually Does

English teachers tell you to avoid passive voice. "The ball was thrown" sounds academic and weird. In Japanese? The passive shows up in everyday conversation all the time, because it serves a totally different purpose.

The passive form (受身形, ukemikei) shifts the focus from the doer of the action to how it affected someone else. When Japanese speakers use the passive, they're often emphasizing the experience of being on the receiving end of an action—not just stating facts. This is fundamentally different from how we use passive in English.

Quick example:

In English, those mean basically the same thing. In the Japanese language, the second one carries more emotional weight. It emphasizes that you experienced something unpleasant, not just that a dog did some biting.

How to Conjugate Passive Verbs (The Actual Conjugation Rules)

Let's get into verb conjugation. Different verb types follow different patterns when you conjugate them into passive form.

Godan verbs (u-verbs): Change the final u-vowel sound to its a-vowel equivalent, then add れる (reru).

Special case: Verbs that end in う become われる, not あれる.

Ichidan verbs (ru-verbs): Drop the る at the end of the verb, add られる.

Irregular verbs:

All passive verbs become ru-verbs after conjugation, regardless of what verb group they started in. This is one of the most important conjugation rules to remember.

The Two Types of Passive That Actually Matter

Direct Passive: Pretty Straightforward

This works like the English passive. Someone does something directly to the subject of the passive sentence.

手紙は母に書かれた
(tegami wa haha ni kakareta)
"The letter was written by mother"

先生に褒められた
(sensei ni homerareta)
"I was praised by the teacher"

The particle に (ni) marks the doer—the person or thing that performed the action. If you've studied Japanese particles, you know the particle に shows up in a ton of different contexts. This is one of the important uses.

Indirect Passive: The Uniquely Japanese One

This is where Japanese passive voice gets really interesting. Japanese grammar has this construction that doesn't have an English equivalent—the indirect passive. Someone's action affects you even though they didn't do anything directly done to you.

雨に降られた
(ame ni furareta)
"I got rained on" (literally: "I was fallen-on by rain")

The rain didn't do anything to you specifically. But you got wet, and now you're annoyed. That's the suffering passive—though honestly, "suffering" is a terrible name because the indirect passive isn't always negative. It just means you were affected by something outside your control.

More examples of the indirect passive form:

財布を盗まれた
(saifu wo nusumareta)
"I had my wallet stolen" (My wallet was stolen, and I'm the one dealing with it)

隣の人にタバコを吸われた
(tonari no hito ni tabako wo suwareta)
"The person next to me smoked" (and it bothered me)

子供に泣かれた
(kodomo ni nakareta)
"The child cried on me" (and I had to deal with it)

These passive sentences emphasize how you're affected. You weren't in control of what happened, and now you're experiencing the consequences—annoyed, inconvenienced, or whatever. The indirect passive is often used to express inconvenience or emotional impact.

When to Use the Passive Form (And When Not To)

Here's where a lot of learners mess up: they translate every English passive directly into Japanese passive. Don't do that.

Use the Japanese passive form when:

Don't use passive when:

Awkward passive: 私は友達に会われた
(watashi wa tomodachi ni awareta)
This sounds weird. Just use the regular form: 私は友達に会った (I met my friend)

Particle Choices Matter

Most of the time, you'll use the particle に to mark the doer of the action. But Japanese passive has other options depending on the situation and nuance you want to convey.

から (kara) - "from"
Use this particle when both people involved are human and the action is direct, or when talking about what something is made from.

友達から笑われた
(tomodachi kara warawareta)
"I was laughed at by my friend"

このお酒は芋から作られている
(kono osake wa imo kara tsukurarete iru)
"This alcohol is made from potatoes"

によって (ni yotte) - formal "by"
Use this in formal writing or when you want to emphasize who the doer is.

この小説は有名な作家によって書かれた
(kono shousetsu wa yuumei na sakka ni yotte kakareta)
"This novel was written by a famous author"

You'll see によって a lot in news articles, academic writing, and formal situations. In casual conversation, stick with に.

The Politeness Factor

Japanese passive shows up way more than English passive because Japanese culture values indirect communication. Being too direct can sound harsh or impolite. The passive form lets you talk about situations without making it feel confrontational—this is a key aspect of Japanese politeness.

Compare these levels:

どうする？
(dou suru?)
"What will you do?" - Casual, direct

どうしますか？
(dou shimasu ka?)
"What will you do?" - Polite

どうされますか？
(dou saremasu ka?)
"What will you do?" - More polite, using passive

The passive version sounds more respectful because it's less direct. This is why you use the passive form way more in Japanese than you would in English—it's not just about grammar, it's about being polite and considerate.

Common Mistakes When Conjugating Verbs into Passive

Overusing the passive
Don't translate every English passive sentence into Japanese passive. Just because you can conjugate a verb into passive doesn't mean you should use passive in that context.

Confusing passive with potential form
Ichidan verbs and 来る have the same られる form for both passive and potential. The two forms look identical, which confuses the hell out of learners. Context usually makes it clear:

食べられる with が: "can eat" (potential form)
食べられる with に: "be eaten" (passive verb)

If you get confused, you can use ことができる for the potential form instead.

Missing the emotional nuance
The passive is often used to convey feelings about what happened—usually negative, but not always. When someone uses the passive form, they're emphasizing that they were affected, not just stating neutral facts.

Forgetting that intransitive verbs can be passive too
In English and Japanese, you normally can't make intransitive verbs passive. But Japanese has the indirect passive, which lets you use passive with intransitive verbs when someone's action bothers you:

泣く (naku) - "to cry" (intransitive)
泣かれた (nakareta) - "Someone cried on me" (passive, expressing annoyance)

Don't Confuse Causative and Passive Forms

Quick note: there's also a causative form (させる / saseru) and a causative-passive form (させられる / saserareru) in Japanese grammar. These are different verb forms:

Example of the causative-passive form: 母に野菜を食べさせられた
(haha ni yasai wo tabesaserareta)
"I was made to eat vegetables by my mother"

That's a different grammar point, but it's worth knowing it exists so you don't mix up passive and causative and passive forms.

Learning Japanese Passive Naturally

The best way to get comfortable with the Japanese passive voice is to see it in context. Textbook examples are fine for learning the conjugation rules, but they don't show you when Japanese speakers actually use the passive versus when they don't.

When you learn Japanese from real content—anime, dramas, manga, YouTube videos—you start noticing the patterns. You see passive used for complaints, polite requests, formal writing, and expressing how things affect people. You learn what sounds natural versus what sounds forced. You pick up the nuance of when to use the passive form and when to stick with active sentences.

That contextual learning is what makes the difference between knowing how to conjugate passive verbs and knowing when to actually use passive in conversation.

If you want to learn Japanese grammar like the passive form naturally, that's what Migaku's built for. Our browser extension works with Netflix, YouTube, and any website—so you can look up words and verb forms instantly while watching shows or reading articles. When you encounter the passive form in real conversations, you can click it, see how it's used in context, and add it to your spaced repetition deck.

The mobile app keeps your flashcards synced, so you can review passive sentences and other grammar points on the go. And because you're learning grammar from actual content instead of textbook examples, you develop an intuitive sense for when passive sounds natural—not just how to conjugate it.

There's a 10-day free trial if you want to learn Japanese this way. Way more effective than drilling conjugation tables and hoping you'll somehow know when to use the passive form in real situations.