Japanese conjugation guide

The Japanese Passive Voice

Learn how to form passive verbs and how Japanese passive sentences differ from their English equivalents.

What is the passive voice?

In a passive sentence, the person or thing affected by an action becomes the grammatical focus. For example, the active sentence “Fred broke the window” can become “The window was broken by Fred”. In Japanese, the person performing the action is commonly marked with に (ni).

Basic pattern: affected person or thing + は／が + agent + に + passive verb

Passive examples

These examples show a direct passive and an adversity passive.

English Japanese Romaji
The book was written last year. その本は去年書かれました。 Sono hon wa kyonen kakaremashita.
My car was stolen. 私は車を盗まれました。 Watashi wa kuruma o nusumaremashita.

How to form the Japanese passive

Passive forms conjugate like Ichidan verbs once they have been created, allowing plain, polite, positive and negative versions.

Class 1

Godan or consonant-stem verbs

Change the final kana to its corresponding a-row sound and add れる (reru). A verb ending in う changes to わ before れる.

Style
Positive
Negative
Plain
a-row + reru
a-row + renai
Polite
a-row + remasu
a-row + remasen
Example: 書く → 書かれる → 書かれない → 書かれます
kaku → kakareru → kakarenai → kakaremasu
Class 2

Ichidan or vowel-stem verbs

Remove the final る (ru) and add られる (rareru), then conjugate the new form like an Ichidan verb.

Style
Positive
Negative
Plain
Stem + rareru
Stem + rarenai
Polite
Stem + raremasu
Stem + raremasen
Example: 食べる → 食べられる → 食べられない → 食べられます
taberu → taberareru → taberarenai → taberaremasu

Irregular passive forms

The two principal irregular verbs have their own passive forms.

する → される suru → sareru — to do → to be done
来る → 来られる kuru → korareru — to come → to be affected by someone coming

More passive example sentences

See passive forms in complete Japanese sentences with English translations.

View passive examples