Whodunnit? Nice And Simple Passive Form
“The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
Passive form can get kind of complicated if you want it to, but let’s take advantage of the wonderful 80-20 rule and learn the 20% that will give us 80% of the benefit. Luckily for you, that’ 20% is the simple bit, and it’s the part you’ll see the most.
So when it comes to passive form, there’s a few questions you need to ask. First, who or what is doing the action? You can cut yourself out of the equation, because you have no control over it, remember? Besides yourself, the person or thing you’re talking about also doesn’t have any control over the action. So, it’s just something that’s happening that’s not in your control (and out of the control of the person or thing you’re talking about, too).
The other question you have to ask is what/who is doing what to what/who? This is really important with passive form because of how the sentence gets set up. Let’s look at a normal sentence – a sentence you should already know and understand (not in passive form).
a中田さん は すし を たべた。
Nakada ate the sushi.
Nice and simple, right? Now, look at this sentence, in passive form.
aすし は 中田さんに たべられた。
The sushi was eaten by Nakada.
First off, look at the difference in the English side of things. “The sushi was eaten by Nakada.” The difference is you’re saying “it was eaten by” rather than saying “Nakada ate it.” Let’s break things down a little further. Let’s get even more simple.
a中田さん に たべられた。
Eaten by Nakada.
aこども に 作られた。
Made by children.
aひとみさん に のまれた。
Drank by Hitomi.
a先生 に おくられた。
Sent by the teacher.
a花子さん に かわれた。
Bought by Hanako.
In these passive form sentences, you’ll notice that you don’t have control over any of them. They’re “passive” sentences. Now let’s take the above sentences and add just a smidge to them to give them a little more information.
aステーキ は 中田さん に たべられた。
The steak was eaten by Nakada.
aふく は こども に 作られた。
The clothes were made by children.
aビール は ひとみさん に のまれた。
The beer was drank by Hitomi.
aてがみ は 先生 に おくられた。
The letter was sent by the teacher.
aゲーム は 花子さん に かわれた。
The game was bought by Hanako.
The above sentences right there really sum up passive form. It’s hard to describe really well, but something happens by way of something or someone, and you don’t have control over it. Things are happening, and you’re describing those things, but you don’t have control over those states or actions. It’s hard to sum up in really simple words, but I hope the build up to this point has really helped alleviate a lot of the pains people normally have with passive form.
We’ll take this a step further though. Now it’s your turn. I want you to take regular verb sentences and turn them into passive form. I’ll help you along the way, and we’ll start from simple and move towards being more complex.