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. |