Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Our adventure begins/Grammar
The Passive voice[edit]
In English, one can generally put a sentence in two different voices, either the active voice, or the passive voice. Please look at the following sentences:
- The cat ate the mouse.
- The mouse was eaten by the cat.
In the first sentence, the subject is the doer, the one who does the action (of eating). This is the active voice.
In the second sentence, the subject is not the doer, it is the reciever of the action. This is the passive voice.
You can form the passive form of a verb as follows: For V1 verbs, take of the る and add られる。
- たべる 食べられる Was eaten
- 見る 見られる Was seen
For V5 verbs, change the verb to the plain past, remove ない and add れる:
- 読む 読まれる Was read
- 書く 書かれる Was written
The verbs する and くる are irregular in the passive, and they are される and こられる, respectively.
In passive sentences, the doer of the verb is marked with に, while the one being affected is marked with は or が. So in our example in the text, デクの樹サマに呼ばれたって？, デクの樹サマ is the one calling, while リンク, which is implied in this sentence, is the one being affected (or being called)
- 剣はリンクに買われました。The sword was bought by Link.
The particle に in a passive sentence may not always be the doer, but may signify time:
- この本は二十年前に書かれました。
This book was written twenty years ago.
Note, for V1 verbs, the passive and the potential are formed the same way. So 食べられる could be translated as either "was eaten" or "can eat". The context will sometimes show if it is the potential form, or the passive.
- 私はすしが食べられます。 I can eat sushi
- 私のすしは弟に食べられました。 My sushi was eaten by my little brother.
- The above has only scratched the surface concerning the Japanese passive. For a little more info about using the passive as a form of polite speech, visit http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/causepass
- For an even more in depth look at the passive, check out "A Dictionary of Basic Grammer", page 364, "rareru 1"
