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Andrew Mize

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7 Aug 2017
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I would like to start this thread to help people and myself better understand the use of the passive form in Japanese since we do not grammatically recognize the passive form in English.
So post away any questions, interesting passive form usages with meanings, idioms w/ passive form, etc.

To start it off I find そう言われると interesting. It is means 'as it was said' , but I am curious as to why it uses the passive form of 言う then also と?
 
Very true, but there's no adversity passive in English. So the classic: 田中さんは雨に降られました。...usually gets some class time.

(but I don't think that's the question)

(And I don't want to even get close to the rabbit hole of ergative languages, which I've never fully "gotten", or gotten at all, I'm not sure.)
 
Very true, but there's no adversity passive in English. So the classic: 田中さんは雨に降られました。...usually gets some class time.

Depends on your dialect and socioeconomic class.

"Tanaka's aśś got rained on" explains the function of the Japanese adversity passive perfectly where I come from.

Examples such as 彼は犬に死なれた are easily explained by "His dog up and died on him"
 
最近彼たちが喧嘩しなれてた。Does this mean the boys have been fighting lately?
 
To start it off I find そう言われると interesting. It is means 'as it was said' , but I am curious as to why it uses the passive form of 言う
Because the writer/speaker of そう言われると is the one who is said so.

then also と?
It differs depending on the context since it can be conditional, continuous usage, or quotation marker.

Did you read our replies in your previous threads, by the way? Any response?
Japanese language question | Japan Forum
Started to dance vs. started dancing | Japan Forum
 
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