Examples of when passive form in English takes active/non passive form in Japanese


**Can anyone give a few more common examples (or even more insight) of when we
should be "switching" from English passive into Japanese active/non-passive?**

(A joint effort might help a lot of us to make our Japanese more natural? I am
happy to compile into one answer...)

**BACKGROUND/EXAMPLES_________________________________________________________________________**

We have a number of very good questions on the use of passive verbs including:

> 1 [Passive vs. active form of verb (past) What is the
> difference?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/4588/passive-vs-
> active-form-of-verb-past-what-is-the-difference)
>
> 2 [Passive verb forms for intransitive
> verbs](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/4946/passive-verb-forms-
> for-intransitive-verbs)
>
> 3 [What forms of verbs (potential or passive) are more frequent in
> Japanese?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6757/what-forms-of-
> verbs-potential-or-passive-are-more-frequent-in-japanese)

During the most recent it was pointed out that often when the passive is used
in English the active/non-passive is preferred in Japanese, and over-use of
the passive is a common problem among Japanese learners. I know an additional
reference on how the passive is used in Japanese (Dict of Basic Jpse Grammar
p33) but **can anyone give a few more common examples (or even more insight)
of when we should be "switching" from English passive into Japanese active?**

(A joint effort might help a lot of us to make our Japanese more natural?)

I have added my own (possibly less common) example that recently confused me
to the two recently given below.

Example 1:

> ニュースに驚いた <\-- Not passive
>
> I was surprised at the news. <\-- Passive

Example 2:

> These cookies were made by her yesterday.
>
> これらのクッキーは昨日、彼女によって作られました。 #1 <\-- Passive
>
> 彼女が昨日これらのクッキーを作りました。#2 <\-- Not passive: possibly more likely to be used

Example 3:

> The armed forces were dispatched <\-- passive
>
> 軍隊が出動する <\-- Not passive




This may not be a direct answer to your question.

I think the passive is not used as much in Japanese, because it is not as
necessary. In English, the passive is used when we want to talk about "the
armed forces", say, but not about who dispatched them.

> The government dispatched the armed forces. _active_
>
> The armed forces were dispatched. _passive_

Grammatically, we turn the object of the active sentence into the subject of
the passive sentence and omit the subject of the active sentence. (We could
recover it by appending "by the government", but that construction is somewhat
cumbersome and far less frequent than the active, I would say.)

In Japanese, even the active voice doesn't need the subject though
(grammatically speaking), and I would say that most if not all "する verbs" are
arranged so as not to require an object, cf.

> dispatch _sth._ vs. 出動する

It is also interesting that the passive voice in Japanese is only used when
the action is performed by a human being (or animal, I suppose). For all other
actions, there are transitive/intransitive verb pairs, e.g.

> The window was opened (by the wind).
>
> (風で)窓が開いた。

and _not_

> 窓が(風に)開けられた。

I would say that, while in English, the passive voice is used to take the
focus away from the subject of the active sentence, in Japanese, the passive
voice leaves the focus of the action on the person performing the action,
whereas the emotional focus is on the subject/topic of the passive sentence.
For example, in English we have

> The police searched my bags.

and possibly

> My bags were searched by the police.

although the former sentence sounds clearer.

In Japanese we have

> 警察が僕のカバンを調べた。

and

> 僕はカバンを警察に調べられた。

This second sentence feels like I was searched more than my bags. The latter
has a more emotional component to it, which can be strengthened by using しまう,
as in

> 僕はカバンを警察に調べられてしまった。

So all in all, I would say that the passive in English plays a very different
role than the passive in Japanese. You don't need to use the passive in
Japanese, but may choose to do so, if you want to focus on the emotional
aspect of being subject to (no pun intended) usually an unpleasant situation
performed by a living being (cf. あぁ、笑われちゃった! or 蚊に食われた!). To state an
objective fact, don't use the passive.

