# Intransitive vs Passive



## Shenrais

Hello everyone, I sort of saw this the other day and was wondering the difference. I understand passive can indicate frustration of something being done by someone. But in a case like...

カギが見つかった。 or カギが見つけられた。


What's the difference? Is the first just stating a fact and the second stating that the key was found (By someone or something)?


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## YeatsK

Hi Shenrais,

I myself have trouble with translating the so-called "passive" construction. But what's important is that we stop referring to it as "passive": it will only continue to confuse you. It's just the ol' られる to me now.

Native speakers, please correct me if I'm wrong:
As you know, intransitive verbs do not have objects: there is no 目的語 and, therefore, no agent. カギが見つかった describes a state: "The key turned up." So less than a fact, think of it as a state.
The second sentence might be using られる to imply some sort of frustration (which I couldn't tell you without context), but essentially you should be noting that there is a (unstated) subject, a verb, and object here: E.g.［警察に］カギが見つけられた：Rats! The police found the key. 
However, it's certainly not "the key was found by someone."

Hope this helps! Good luck!


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## wind-sky-wind

"鍵が見つかった" usually shows "You yourself (have) found the key," though sometimes someone else did/has.

"鍵が見つけられた" means "the key was found," and doesn't show who found it.
(Probably, someone else found it.)
Rather than that, however, this expression itself sounds awkward. Not so common, though grammatically correct.


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## frequency

カギが見つけられた isn't impossible, but カギが見つかった is easier, so I think that we don't need especially to choose the 見つけられた version..



YeatsK said:


> As you know, intransitive verbs do not have objects: there is no 目的語 and, therefore, no agent. カギが見つかった describes a state: "The key turned up."


Yes, indeed.

You know, 見つけられた suggests "there is somebody behind this phenomenon": it implies that somebody has found it. Who? This information is withheld or is considered to be the secondary issue. On the other hand, カギが見つかった has the information on the key only, so you can more concentrate on how the key is, as YeatsK said.



Shenrais said:


> I understand passive can indicate frustration of something being done by someone.


?? Oh sorry I'm not sure about this.


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## ktdd

frequency said:


> ?? Oh sorry I'm not sure about this.


I guess the OP was referring to sentences like 忙しい時にお客さんに来られて大変です。 but I don't think that's the case here.


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## Nino83

Shenrais said:


> I understand passive can indicate frustration of something being done by someone.


Maybe you're referring to this construction "A wa B ni V-(ra)reru", that can be used with both transitive and intransitive verbs (降る is intransitive).
雨が降った。It rained (lit. rain fell)
彼は雨に降られた。 It rained and he was annoyed.
In that case (I think, but I'm not sure, wait for a native speaker to confirm it) the subject should be a person (while in your case "カギ" is the subject of the sentence).


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## kamot

Shenrais said:


> カギが見つけられた。


Without context, 見つけられる could mean passive and potential.
At first glance, I thought this sentence means "(I) managed to/was able to find the key."

As other members said, this sentence could be passive, but I think it sometimes leads to misunderstanding.


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## Shenrais

ktdd said:


> I guess the OP was referring to sentences like 忙しい時にお客さんに来られて大変です。 but I don't think that's the case here.



I meant something like

*友達に*車を*使われました*。

Where my car was used by my friend (and I was inconvenienced as he/she didn't ask to use it or whatever)


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## wind-sky-wind

If it's "potential," it would be usually "カギを見つけられた."

Whether "カギが見つけられた" or "カギを見つかられた," it sounds awkward.


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## frequency

ktdd said:


> 忙しい時にお客さんに来られて大変です。





Nino83 said:


> 彼は雨に降られた。





Shenrais said:


> *友達に*車を*使われました*。


Frustration-ukemi, good! Agree.



Shenrais said:


> カギが見つけられた。


You hid your anime figure in the locker and hid the locker key, too. But your roommate has found the key! You'd say カギが見つけられてしまった。

In this case, to my ear, this doesn't sound very odd. Using the passive, the sentence can mention that there is the person who found the key, and you're seeing the key from your viewpoint. Is this frustration-ukemi? U~~m, I want to say yes. （どうだろう？） Or victim-ukemi? lol

カギが見つかってしまった。is okay in this case, too.


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## kamot

wind-sky-wind said:


> If it's "potential," it would be usually "カギを見つけられた."


Yes. We usually use "を" for potential as the previous word is object. But we sometimes use "が" for these cases.
According to the Japanese corpus 少納言, there are 29 examples for "を見つけられた" while 7 examples for "が見つけられた".
In the examples for "が見つけられた", there seems to be examples of potential sentence.
近くにいい店が見つけられたら、最高ですよ （『Organic baseマクロビオティックと暮らす』）
この長椅子よりもっと快適な場所が見つけられたら、わがいとしのジェニーをどれだけ愛しているか・・・（『黄金の誓い』）


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## Shenrais

Thanks for the responses everyone.


frequency said:


> Frustration-ukemi, good! Agree.
> 
> 
> You hid your anime figure in the locker and hid the locker key, too. But your roommate has found the key! You'd say カギが見つけられてしまった。
> 
> In this case, to my ear, this doesn't sound very odd. Using the passive, the sentence can mention that there is the person who found the key, and you're seeing the key from your viewpoint. Is this frustration-ukemi? U~~m, I want to say yes. （どうだろう？） Or victim-ukemi? lol
> 
> カギが見つかってしまった。is okay in this case, too.



So I was right when I thought just intransitive would just make it fact while passive would indicate someone behind the scenes doing this.

It may seem like i'm causing confusion so I wanted to try another example that may not confuse people into thinking it's potential.

そのビルが、3年前に建ちました。
そのビルが、3年前に建てられました。


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## frequency

Good! The second is not potential. And I think you already know:


Shenrais said:


> そのビルが、3年前に建てられました。


Who built it? According to our common sense, people did in general. And in this sentence you're seeing the building from your viewpoint. The doer/agent (people) is omitted.
This is better than:


Shenrais said:


> そのビルが、3年前に建ちました。



Not always though, subject + が + intransitive verb sounds like the building has its hands and built itself selfishly and independently.


About が in my カギが見つけられてしまった:
Sorry for the confusion and を is okay, too. _In casual speech_ I think が・を switching is often. If you're interested in the switching, start a thread someday.


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