I Was Rained
Today, I will talk about a Japanese unique expression “adversative passive.”
雨に降られる
In Japanese, when you suffer inconvenience, you sometimes use intransitive verbs as passive forms.
今日は、日本語の独特の言い回しである「迷惑の受け身」を紹介します。
For example, you can say “I was rained (雨に降られた)” instead of “It rained (雨が降った).”
日本語では、迷惑を被るような場合、自動詞を受け身で使うことがあります。
By using such an expression, you can imply that you suffer inconvenience from the rain.
例えば、「雨が降る」を「雨に降られる」のようにして使います。
In addition, you can say something like “犯人に逃げられた, I was fled by the criminal (the criminal fled),” and “夫に死なれた, I was died by my husband (my husband died).”
このような表現を使うことで、雨が降ることが迷惑であるということを、暗に伝えることができます。
