Not every passive names a doer. In fact, the most common passive in written Japanese names no one at all. When who did it is unknown, obvious, or simply beside the point, Japanese quietly deletes the agent, promotes the affected thing to topic, and states the event as a plain fact: この寺は千年前に建てられた — "This temple was built a thousand years ago." No builder in sight. This agentless passive is the backbone of manuals, history, news, and science, and mastering it is less about mechanics — you already know how to form a passive — than about adopting the detached, impersonal register in which the doer is deliberately left out.
The good news: English does the same thing
English speakers already own this instinct. "The temple was built in 794." "English is spoken here." "The meeting has been cancelled." None of these tells you who built, speaks, or cancelled — and none of them feels like it is missing anything. Japanese uses the identical strategy for the identical reasons:
この寺は約千年前に建てられた。
kono tera wa yaku sennen mae ni taterareta
This temple was built about a thousand years ago.
ここでは英語が話されている。
koko de wa eigo ga hanasarete iru
English is spoken here.
会議は中止されました。
kaigi wa chūshi saremashita
The meeting has been cancelled.
The mechanics are simply the ordinary passive with the に-agent phrase removed. Take an active sentence, make the object the topic (は) or subject (が), put the verb in the passive, and stop. There is no placeholder, no "by someone" — the slot is left genuinely empty.
The two triggers: unknown, or irrelevant
You reach for the agentless passive in two situations. First, when the doer is unknown or generic — nobody in particular, or everybody:
この製品は中国で作られている。
kono seihin wa Chūgoku de tsukurarete iru
This product is made in China.
米は日本中で作られている。
kome wa nihonjū de tsukurarete iru
Rice is grown all over Japan.
Nobody cares which factory or which farmer — the point is the where, not the who. Note that で here marks location, and に (when present) marks time; neither marks an agent. The doer has simply evaporated.
Second, when the doer is obvious or irrelevant to the point — the focus is on the event and its affected object, not on the actor:
駅前に新しいビルが建設された。
ekimae ni atarashii biru ga kensetsu sareta
A new building was constructed in front of the station.
容疑者は昨夜、東京で逮捕された。
yōgisha wa sakuya, Tōkyō de taiho sareta
The suspect was arrested last night in Tokyo.
Of course a construction company built the building and police arrested the suspect — but naming them would clutter a headline. The passive lets the sentence foreground what happened to the building and the suspect while staying impersonal.
The register: deliberate detachment
Here is the insight that turns rule-following into fluency. The agentless passive is not just "a passive with the doer missing" — it is the grammatical face of a whole register: neutral, objective, institutional. History textbooks, product manuals, scientific papers, legal notices, and news reports all live in a world where "who did it" is systematically suppressed so that the facts can stand on their own. English shares this register, but Japanese leans on it even harder, because naming an individual doer in an impersonal context can feel intrusive or oddly personal.
新しい法律が来月から施行される。
atarashii hōritsu ga raigetsu kara shikō sareru
A new law will come into force starting next month.
この本は二十以上の言語に翻訳されている。
kono hon wa nijū ijō no gengo ni honyaku sarete iru
This book has been translated into more than twenty languages.
実験は三回繰り返された。
jikken wa sankai kurikaesareta
The experiment was repeated three times.
Read a Japanese newspaper or a Wikipedia article and you will see this pattern in nearly every sentence. Learning to produce it is what makes your own written Japanese sound like a report rather than a diary entry. For the broader conventions of this style — the である copula, nominalization, the avoidance of first person — see the formal written register.
When you do want to name the source
If the report genuinely needs to credit a creator or cause, you do not fall back to conversational に — you use によって (formal), which suits this objective register and does not imply the subject was victimized. The agentless passive and the によって-passive are two settings on the same dial:
この橋は1998年に日本の企業によって建設された。
kono hashi wa sen kyūhyaku kyūjū hachi nen ni Nihon no kigyō ni yotte kensetsu sareta
This bridge was constructed in 1998 by a Japanese company.
The full treatment of that choice lives on に vs によって. The rule of thumb: drop the agent unless naming it adds real information; if you do name it in this register, use によって, not に.
Don't confuse it with てある
One genuine point of confusion for English speakers: the agentless passive and the 〜てある resultant state both describe a thing in a done-to condition, but they say different things. The passive states that the event happened; てある states that a deliberate state now exists as a result of someone's intention.
窓が割られた。
mado ga warareta
The window was broken (an event — someone broke it).
窓が開けてある。
mado ga akete aru
The window has been left open (a purposeful, prepared state).
割られた reports an event, often unwelcome; 開けてある reports that someone opened the window on purpose and it stays that way. Reach for the agentless passive when you mean "X happened to it," and for てある when you mean "someone has set it up this way."
Common mistakes
❌ この寺は誰かに千年前に建てられた。
kono tera wa dareka ni sennen mae ni taterareta
Wrong — forcing in a vague 'by someone' where natural Japanese leaves the agent out.
✅ この寺は千年前に建てられた。
kono tera wa sennen mae ni taterareta
This temple was built a thousand years ago.
The classic transfer error: cramming in だれかに ("by someone") because the English sentence seems to imply an unnamed doer. Delete it. The agentless passive's whole job is that the slot stays empty.
❌ 人がこの製品を中国で作っている。
hito ga kono seihin o Chūgoku de tsukutte iru
Awkward — a bare 'people' subject where the impersonal passive is far more natural.
✅ この製品は中国で作られている。
kono seihin wa Chūgoku de tsukurarete iru
This product is made in China.
Using an active sentence with a vague 人が subject to dodge the passive sounds clumsy and un-report-like. The passive is the natural, neutral choice.
❌ 会議は来週に開かれます。
kaigi wa raishū ni hirakaremasu
Wrong particle — 来週 is a relative time word and takes no に.
✅ 会議は来週開かれます。
kaigi wa raishū hirakaremasu
The meeting will be held next week.
A passive verb does not change the rest of the grammar: relative time words (来週, 昨日, 今日) still take no に. Only absolute times (3時に, 1998年に) take に.
❌ この本は二十以上の言語で翻訳されている。
kono hon wa nijū ijō no gengo de honyaku sarete iru
Wrong particle — the target language of translation takes に, not で.
✅ この本は二十以上の言語に翻訳されている。
kono hon wa nijū ijō no gengo ni honyaku sarete iru
This book has been translated into more than twenty languages.
Here に marks the goal of translation (into which language), not an agent — another reminder that に has many jobs beyond marking the doer.
Key takeaways
- The agentless passive deletes the doer and topicalizes the affected thing: この寺は建てられた.
- Use it when the doer is unknown, generic, obvious, or irrelevant — never invent a だれかに / 人に placeholder.
- で marks location, に marks absolute time or a goal; none of these is an agent.
- It is the default register of manuals, history, news, and science — impersonal by design, and even more pervasive in Japanese than in English.
- To credit a source in this register, upgrade to によって (formal), not conversational に.
- Distinguish it from 〜てある: the passive reports an event; てある reports a deliberate resultant state.
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Start learning Japanese→Related Topics
- Agent Marking: に vs によってN3 — When to mark the doer of a passive with everyday に and when to switch to the formal によって for verbs of creation, invention, discovery, and impersonal cause.
- The Passive 受身: FormationN4 — How to build the Japanese passive れる／られる across all verb classes, why the doer is marked に (not 'by'), and why れる／られる looks identical to the potential and the honorific.
- Direct Passive: 〜に〜られるN4 — The direct passive, where an active clause's object becomes the subject — 先生が私を褒めた turns into 私は先生に褒められた — and why Japanese chooses it as a matter of viewpoint, not formality.
- である体: The Formal Written RegisterN2 — である体 — the impersonal register of papers, editorials, and reports — is highly formal yet non-polite: an essay becomes more formal by REMOVING です・ます, because formality and politeness are different axes, the opposite of the intuition English speakers bring.
- 〜てある: Intentional Resultant StateN4 — How a transitive verb plus ある describes a state someone deliberately set up and left in place — 窓が開けてある 'the window has been opened on purpose' — and why the object takes が.