Causative, Passive, Passive-Causative and Natural Potential Verb Forms

Below is a chart summarizing the causative, passive, passive-causative and natural potential verb forms. I stole it from the most excellent book, Making Sense of Japanese by Jay Rubin. I can’t recommend this book enough – it is one of the best study books I have purchased and it provides the best discussion of wa (は) and ga (が) I have seen. All chart entries are complete sentences, with implied subjects, objects, and agents, using the transitive verb kaku (書く- to write). All the verb forms have been put into the perfective –た form as you would most likely encounter them in real-life and they have been translated using first-person singular subjects and masculine third-person singular pronouns for simplicity, employing the feminine at two points to indicate the presence of a third party. The emphasis here is on the number of players involved and direction of the action, not levels of respect.

Conjugated form of 書くTranslation
書いた。
Kaita.
I wrote it.
書いてやった。
Kaite yatta/ageta.
I wrote it for him.
書いてくれた/くださった。
Kaite kureta/kudasatta.
He wrote it for me.
書いてもらった/ いただいた。
Kaite moratta/itadaita.
I got him to write it for me.
書かせた。
Kakaseta.
I made/let him write it.
書かせてくれた/くださった。
Kakasete kureta/kudasatta.
He did me the favor of making/letter her/me write it.
書かせてもらった/いただいた。
Kakasete moratta/itadaita.
I got him to let me write it, or I got him to make/let her write it.
書かせてあげた/やった。
Kakasete ageta/yatta.
I let/made him write it.
書かれた。
Kakareta.
It was written, or I was adversely affected by his having written it.
手紙が書かれた。
Tegami ga kakareta.
The letter was written.
手紙を書かれた。
Tegami o kakareta.
I suffered the consequences of his writing the letter.
書かせられた。
Kakaserareta.
I was forced by him to write it.
書いてあった。
Kaite atta.
It had been written. (false passive)
書けた。
Kaketa.
It successfully wrote itself.