How to make the positive passive?

4 comments

1. I’m not sure but maybe you can use て form and add くれた

2. You would just use てくれる or てもらう.

   本を貸してくれた

   Also the “suffering passive” isn’t what it sounds like. What you’ve described is the normal passive and it doesn’t have to imply that the action was negative. The suffering passive is specifically the phenomenon where the passive has an object that is different from the subject (ケーキを食べられる) or where the verb is intransitive (妻に死なれる). Neither of these can be translated very well to an English passive and are usually rendered in the active voice in English. Sometimes people forcibly translate them with “had my cake eaten” or “had my wife die” but it’s not the most natural way to render them in English. Just translate them as “he ate my cake” and “my wife died”

   Addendum:
   The reason you can’t translate these to an English passive is because they would become:
   “I was eaten my cake by him” and “I was died by my wife” which doesn’t make sense in English.

   Addendum 2:
   Ultimately we should just call these the “direct” passive and the “indirect” passive. Whether it’s causing anyone suffering (被害/迷惑) can be determined by context. The indirect passive is more likely to imply suffering but it doesn’t always. For example: 田中さんに日本語をほめられた is a positive statement.

3. there are a few verbs were passive isn’t really a negative thing:

   * 誘[さそ]う to invite

   * 紹介[しょうかい]する to introduce

   * 呼[よ]ぶ to call out/invite

   * 尊敬[そんけい]する to respect

   besides that I have nothing to add to this discussion which hasn’t already been said

4. The passive doesn’t always have a negative feeling to it:

   先生に褒められた。I was praised by the teacher.

   Some verbs will clearly have a good connotation to them, others have a negative one:

   親に応援された。I was encouraged by my parents.

   財布は盗まれた。My wallet was stolen.

   Some are debatable:

   ケーキは彼に食べられた。The cake was eaten by him. (An annoyance or a report?)