I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to understand Passive Form, but I’m still not entirely sure if I’m understanding it correctly.
According to [Tofugu](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/verb-passive-form-rareru/), the Passive Form tells us that an action “was done”/ was performed to X. eg. 食べられる (to be eaten), 食べられた (was eaten).
Coupling this with a video from [Cure Dolly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIoyAZwPqz0&list=PLg9uYxuZf8x9tDwYOYF6Q4M3wj3zKo-a5&index=2), in the example sentence from her video: 「私はメアリ－にボールを投げられた。」 Where due to the に particle being in front of メアリ－ means the ball was thrown at me. Hence, if the sentence was written like so: 「メアリ－は私にボールを投げられる。」 Would this mean that I was going to throw the ball at Mary?
Of Course Cure Dolly states the Passive Form should be called the Receptive Form, so to phrase it more accurately, does the second sentence「メアリ－は私にボールを投げられる。」state that Mary (receiver), was going to be thrown a ball (Action), by me(doer)?
3 comments
Yes, though it’s a bit weird. In the context, when the doer is yourself, an active sentence *usually* makes more sense, but as a passive construction it’s grammatically correct.
The simplest way to understand passive is that the agent (doer) and patient (receiver) swap places between the subject and (in English) the object. In Japanese, the agent becomes the indirect object, which is marked with に. This allows transitive verbs to apply to another object (like a ball in your example) when that is used in the interaction between the agent and patient.
It depends on usage. As the direct passive, it‘s as you interpret. As the owner’s passive, it’s “Mary’s ball was thrown by me”/“I threw Mary’s ball”.
メアリーは私にボールを投げられる is confusing because it can be interpreted in multiple ways, including 投げられる as potential form (‘can throw’) instead of passive. You wouldn’t say it like this in reality.