Japanese has a passive that English simply cannot translate directly. It is called the suffering passive or adversative passive (迷惑の受身, めいわくのうけみ — literally "the passive of nuisance," also 間接受身, the indirect passive). It lets a person become the subject of a sentence not because anything was done to them, but because an event — often one they had no part in — affected them badly. 雨が降った ("it rained") becomes 雨に降られた ("I got rained on, to my dismay"). 子供が泣いた ("the child cried") becomes 子供に泣かれた ("I was troubled by the child crying"). English has no way to say "I was cried by my child"; it must add a separate complaint — "and it bothered me." Japanese bakes the complaint straight into the grammar.
What makes it "indirect"
In the direct passive, the subject was the thing acted on — the object of an active verb, promoted. The suffering passive is different: the subject is a person inserted from outside the core event, someone the event merely impinged on. Nothing in 雨が降った acts on you at all — yet you can insert yourself as the affected party and passivize the whole thing.
The mechanics:
- The affected person becomes the subject/topic (は or が) — very often 私, and very often left unspoken.
- The event's original participant becomes the agent, marked に.
- The verb takes the passive ending — even if it is intransitive.
| Affected party | Cause / doer | Verb | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neutral | — | 雨が | 降った |
| Suffering passive | (私は) | 雨に | 降られた |
出かけた途端に雨に降られて、びしょ濡れになった。
dekaketa totan ni ame ni furarete, bishonure ni natta
The moment I went out, I got caught in the rain and was soaked through.
The verb 降る ("to rain") is intransitive — it has no object to promote — yet 降られる is a perfectly good passive. That is the signature of the suffering passive: it passivizes verbs that English never could.
The built-in adversity
The defining feature is that the suffering passive is always negative. It encodes inconvenience, annoyance, distress, or loss. This is not a nuance you add with tone — it is the meaning of the construction itself, which is why it so often travels with 困った ("was troubled"), 大変だった ("it was awful"), or a resulting mess.
夜中に子供に泣かれて、一睡もできなかった。
yonaka ni kodomo ni nakarete, issui mo dekinakatta
My child cried in the middle of the night, and I couldn't sleep a wink.
締め切り前に友達に来られて、正直ちょっと困った。
shimekiri mae ni tomodachi ni korarete, shōjiki chotto komatta
A friend came over right before my deadline, and honestly it was a bit of a bother.
Compare the neutral report with the suffering version to feel the difference:
| Neutral | Suffering passive |
|---|---|
| 雨が降った ("it rained" — just a fact) | 雨に降られた ("I got rained on" — my problem) |
| 友達が来た ("a friend came" — neutral, maybe nice) | 友達に来られた ("a friend descended on me" — inconvenient) |
Transitive verbs, too: the bystander passive
The suffering passive is not limited to intransitives. A transitive verb can also form one — but with a twist. Instead of promoting the object (that would be the direct or possessive passive), it inserts an affected bystander as subject while the object keeps its を. The classic case is someone doing something unpleasant near you.
レストランで、隣の席の人にタバコを吸われた。
resutoran de, tonari no seki no hito ni tabako o suwareta
At the restaurant, the person at the next table smoked (right next to me), and it bothered me.
Here タバコ stays marked with を — it is not my cigarette and nothing was done to me directly. The person smoked their own cigarette; the sentence exists purely to register that their smoking impinged on me, the unspoken subject. English is helpless to translate this without an added clause.
満員の会場で、前の人に立たれて、ステージが全然見えなかった。
man'in no kaijō de, mae no hito ni tatarete, sutēji ga zenzen mienakatta
In the packed venue, the person in front stood up (on me), and I couldn't see the stage at all.
死なれる: the emotional extreme
The most striking suffering passive is with 死ぬ ("to die"). 父が死んだ is the neutral "my father died." But 父に死なれた centers the survivor — it means something like "my father died on me," carrying the weight of being left behind, bereaved, affected. It is not colder than the English; it is the opposite — it foregrounds the speaker's loss.
十歳のときに父に死なれて、母が一人で私たちを育てた。
jussai no toki ni chichi ni shinarete, haha ga hitori de watashitachi o sodateta
My father died when I was ten, and my mother raised us on her own.
In more literary or formal register, the near-synonym 先立たれる ("to be predeceased") carries the same being-left-behind pathos:
祖父は十年前に祖母に先立たれた。
sofu wa jūnen mae ni sobo ni sakidatareta
My grandfather was predeceased by my grandmother ten years ago.
先週、飼っていた犬に逃げられて、家族みんなで捜している。
senshū, katteita inu ni nigerarete, kazoku minna de sagashiteiru
Last week our dog ran away on us, and the whole family is out looking for it.
Register
The suffering passive is thoroughly everyday and colloquial — 雨に降られた, 泣かれた, and 足を踏まれた are the natural, unmarked way ordinary people complain about their day. The 死なれる / 先立たれる end of the range shades toward (literary) or heartfelt speech because of the gravity of the subject, but the construction itself belongs to normal spoken Japanese, not to any elevated register.
Common mistakes
1. Defaulting to the active and silently dropping the "it affected me" nuance. This is the error English speakers make by omission — they never produce the suffering passive at all, so their Japanese loses the complaint entirely.
❌ 昨日、雨が降ったから、濡れた。
kinō, ame ga futta kara, nureta
Grammatical but flat — the neutral 'it rained' misses that the rain victimized you.
✅ 昨日、雨に降られて、濡れた。
kinō, ame ni furarete, nureta
I got caught in the rain yesterday and got wet.
2. Trying to use を with an intransitive suffering passive. 降る, 泣く, 来る, 死ぬ are intransitive — the cause takes に, never を.
❌ 私は雨を降られた。
watashi wa ame o furareta
Incorrect — 降る is intransitive; the cause is に: 雨に降られた.
✅ 私は雨に降られた。
watashi wa ame ni furareta
I got rained on.
3. Marking the causer with が instead of に. If 友達 is the one whose arrival troubled you, they are the に-agent, not the が-subject — the subject is you.
❌ 友達が来られて困った。
tomodachi ga korarete komatta
Incorrect — the one who came is the に-agent: 友達に来られて困った.
✅ 友達に来られて困った。
tomodachi ni korarete komatta
I was put out by a friend coming over.
4. Pairing it with a positive reaction. Because the construction means adversity, welding a happy feeling onto it clashes. If a respected person's visit is welcome, use 〜てくれる / 〜てくださる, not the suffering passive.
❌ 先生に来られて、嬉しかった。
sensei ni korarete, ureshikatta
Contradictory — 来られて implies the visit inconvenienced you.
✅ 先生が来てくださって、嬉しかった。
sensei ga kite kudasatte, ureshikatta
I was happy that the teacher came.
5. Reading 来られて / 降られて as a potential or honorific. These forms are shape-identical to the potential and honorific; the tell-tale sign of the suffering passive is a に-cause plus an adverse outcome (困った, 濡れた, 眠れなかった). Let context decide.
Key takeaways
- The suffering passive (迷惑の受身) lets a person become subject because an event adversely affected them — even an intransitive event.
- It passivizes verbs English never could — 降る, 泣く, 来る, 死ぬ — precisely to encode adversity.
- Structure: affected person (は/が, often 私, often omitted) + cause (に) + passive verb.
- With transitive verbs, an affected bystander becomes subject while the object keeps its を (タバコを吸われた).
- It is a matter of stance, not weather: 雨に降られた ≠ 雨が降った — the construction itself grammaticalizes annoyance, victimhood, or loss.
- Its meaning is inherently negative, so it clashes with positive reactions — use 〜てくれる for welcome events.
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