Who scolded whom in Aに怒られる?


I can see that someone got mad or someone made someone else mad. The things
that make it difficult are `に` and the `られる` form of `怒る`. What does this
mean? How do you figure out who did what in these types of sentences?




It may first bear mentioning that 怒られる is usually used specifically to mean
"got scolded by", rather than "to became the focus of someone's anger".

This may make it easier to understand.

  * Aは怒った : A got angry 
  * AはBに怒った : A got angry at B (in this usage, B is usually not a person, but rather an event or state of affairs). 
  * AはBを怒った : A scolded B (B is a person) 
  * BはAに怒られた : B got scolded by A. 




Maybe the fact that `に` is used in both active and passive sentences with `怒る`
is making it difficult for you. `に` can be used either as a dative case marker
or as an element leading the agentive-phrase in passive. In English, you can
see that the dative is `to`, whereas the agentive-phrase is headed by `by`, so
an active sentence with dative case and its passive counterpart look pretty
much different:

> A gave a present to B (`to` as dative case)
>
> B was given a present by A (`by` heading an agentive phrase in passive)

But in Japanese, they are both expressed as `に`. So an active sentence with
dative case and its passive counterpart may look confusing:

> AがBに怒った (`に` as dative case)
>
> BがAに怒られた (`に` heading an agentive phrase in passive)

The two examples above describe (roughly) the same event; in both sentences, A
is who scolded, and B is who was scolded. But in the first sentence, it is B
that appears with `に`, and in the second sentence, it is A. I think that was
where you were confused. But you should be able to distinguish the two
sentences by looking at whether the verb is in active or passive form. If you
see that it is in active form `怒る`, then the phrase that comes with `に` is
**the one who is being scolded**. If it is in passive form `怒られる`, then the
phrase that comes with `に` is **the one who is scolding**.

* * *

**Advanced part**

Language hacker raised an interesting point in the comment, so I will add
something. You can also see the difference between the two usages of `に` when
you topicalize the relevant phrase. The dative `に` becomes optional in front
of `は`, but the agentive `に` is obligatory:

> Aは、Bには怒ったが、Cには怒らなかった (dative case `に` preceding `は`)
>
> Aは、Bは怒ったが、Cは怒らなかった (dative case `に` omitted before `は`)
>
> Bは、Aには怒られたが、Dには怒られなかった (agentive `に` preceding `は`)
>
> * Bは、Aは怒られたが、Dは怒られなかった (Ungrammatical to omit agentive `に` preceding `は`)
>
> (* indicates ungrammatical sentence.)

