生きかえる is not passive, it's a compound verb from 生きる (or maybe classical 生く but that makes no difference) + 返える（かえる）, and means to return to life or to come back to life.

生きている (which contracts to 生きてる in speech) is the normal -te form + iru meaning, in this case, a progressive (is alive, is living).

You are correct that 生きる's passive form would be rarely used, although any action verb can theoretically be used in either adversative or honorific passive.  I don't know, maybe someone waiting for an inheritance from a hated relative could use 生きられる in the adversative passive?  Maybe not.

EDIT: It looks like there are phrases that can be used with を, such as 今を生きる, 永遠を生きる, or 夢を生きる, but all the examples I could find of 生きられる were potential rather than passive.  I am finding hits for 生きられている, which should be passive rather than potential, but I'm not entirely sure of the meaning of phrases like 僕たちは長く生きられているから幸せ.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 October 27, 9:11 pm)

No problem.  I hope someone else can help me with this 生きられている thing because it's bothering me.   EDIT: I asked a native speaker and it is the potential.  Many potential verbs cannot take ている but I guess some can, it seems to have to do with how easily or quickly the potentiality can change...maybe....I'm still hashing it out but there's also confusion between the resultant state and continuing action.  頭がふわふわ...

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 October 27, 9:30 pm)

I don't remember what I said, but sentences in the passive voice often carry negative connotations. This is always the case when it's in the indirect passive voice. If 僕たちは長く生きられているから幸せ were passive, it would be indirect passive because 生きる is an intransitive verb here. But then it contradicts the 幸せ.

As for おじさんは僕に生きられている, it sounds like the uncle wants 僕 to die, not the other way around. If you put it in IceCream's way, it'd be like "my living is being done to my uncle, and he's not happy about that."

The direct passive voice is trickier because Japanese has stricter rules about when and how to use it and there are a large number of accepted exceptions that were traditionally wrong thanks to direct translations from other languages.

Certainly English and Japanese passive voices have similarities in some cases in the sense that they often reverse the who-did-what relation. But they're different in so many ways that it doesn't seem helpful to understand the Japanese passive voice by translation. In fact, the who-did-what relation doesn't even make sense if you're talking about the indirect passive voice because it's reversing the who-did relation. I don't think it's a good idea to try to understand 雨に降られる by forming a passive version of "It rains."

Rujiel wrote:

... why "to live" needs a passive form, since there isn't an equivalent in english other than maybe in the sense of "a life lived"..

Just because it's unnecessary in English doesn't mean another language shouldn't have it. You can't form passive versions of sentences like "I live," "It rains," "She died," and "He moves" in English because there is no apparent objects. And when English speakers come across a sentence whose word-for-word translation looks like a passive version of an objectless sentence, they call it "indirect passive voice." But what's indirect is not the Japanese sentence. It's the way you express ideas carried by Japanese indirect passive sentences that is indirect.

Ryuujin27 wrote:

So would that make it fine to say 雨に降られている if it were currently raining and inconveniencing you?

Yes. It's idiomatic. It could carry a more complicated nuance depending on context though.

IceCream wrote:

sorry magamo... didnt mean to misquote you or anything. You did say that it carried a negative nuance, but i didn't realise it was so much so that you can't say something good about it. But, then, why would you i guess?

I kinda thought if the person was religious it'd be possible? Like, (god) is doing the long life to us, so we're happy. (where it was obvious from context they were religious)
Or is there a better way of saying it? What would it look like then? And what does it mean then, if it isnt passive?

Oh yeah, i got the uncle thing wrong. cos its the person with the は who gets the action. tyty.

But the direction goes from the rain in 雨に降られる, so wasn't it like, the rain getting me, like getting caught in a shower?

haha im totally confused again now

Sorry I should have been clearer when we were talking about passive voices on irc, and probably I said something wrong. Actually I still don't know how to explain the Japanese passive voices in a simple and easy way to English speakers.

As for 僕たちは長く生きられているから幸せ and religious people, they often have their unique word usage/grammar/vocabulary that aren't common. So it could work that way (though I highly doubt it). Actually there are a lot of passive sentences that are now acceptable but were not before the influx of translations from Western languages, e.g., この会社は1900年に設立されました。= "This company was founded in 1900." But it's unusual to interpret the sentence as "(god) is doing the long life to us, so we're happy." Besides, being religious doesn't always mean you believe in God; Buddhism doesn't have it, and gods in Shinto are pretty different from Jesus ans such.

Anyway, if it were in a religious context and indirect passive, then it'd sound like "We're living a long life, (God isn't happy about that), and we're happy about the fact that we're living a long life and God isn't happy" where () is the implication that usually comes with the indirect passive voice. Also, usually you explicitly say who is doing the action when it's recursive. In this case, "we" live and also "are done to." So if this were a correct interpretation, you'd put 僕らに so it reads 僕たちは僕らに長く生きられているから幸せ. Regardless of you're religious or not, usually the Japanese word 生きる like in this sentence only means "to live" and never means "to be given life by god."

If you want to say you're happy because of the long life given by God, you don't need to say it in the passive voice in the first place. A simpler sentence like 神様のおかげで長生きできて嬉しいです would work.

About the direction of 雨に降られる,  私 gets the action if 私 is the omitted subject in the sentence because its original form would be then 私は雨に降られる:

おじさんは僕に生きられている -> the action that "僕 lives" is done to おじさん, and おじさん isn't happy, is suffering, etc.
私は雨に降られる -> the action that "雨 falls" is done to 私, and 私 isn't happy etc.

Last edited by magamo (2009 October 28, 6:02 am)

couldn't 僕たちは長く生きられているから幸せ be thought of as 僕たちは長く生きられて, いるから幸せ?  I realize it would be written with a comma but the translation could go something like "We having been able to live long, are here, and so are happy"

one thing that always confused me about ~ている　is when it means て、いる as in
彼は行っている　"He's gone" "He went (and now exists somewhere else)"　
or the present progressive
彼は食べている "He's eating" as currently in the process of
Then there's
雨が降っている "It's raining" or "It's rained"  it can mean either.

yudantaiteki wrote:

theBryan wrote:

couldn't 僕たちは長く生きられているから幸せ be thought of as 僕たちは長く生きられて, いるから幸せ?  I realize it would be written with a comma but the translation could go something like "We having been able to live long, are here, and so are happy"

one thing that always confused me about ~ている　is when it means て、いる as in
彼は行っている　"He's gone" "He went (and now exists somewhere else)"　
or the present progressive
彼は食べている "He's eating" as currently in the process of
Then there's
雨が降っている "It's raining" or "It's rained"  it can mean either.

All ている forms can indicate the 'resultative state'; 彼は食べている can also mean "He has eaten".  These aren't て、いる in the sense of a pause, but they're both formed from the idea of an action that has been started (and maybe completed) + exist.

Off topic but, are you the same person from that other 日本語 forum that was anti-Heisig? My impression was always that if that person interacted with 'veteran' RTKers, they'd realize many of their qualms were misconceptions.

Last edited by nest0r (2009 October 28, 5:52 pm)

I could very well be the person you're thinking of.  I still don't believe that my objections are "misconceptions", it's just that this forum has found ways to address the flaws of RTK and work it into an overall study plan.  I'm still not a big fan of Heisig but I'm not planning on debating that here since the rules discourage it (and there's no real point).

yudantaiteki wrote:

I could very well be the person you're thinking of.  I still don't believe that my objections are "misconceptions", it's just that this forum has found ways to address the flaws of RTK and work it into an overall study plan.  I'm still not a big fan of Heisig but I'm not planning on debating that here since the rules discourage it (and there's no real point).

That's fine, I was just curious. What I meant by 'misconceptions' was less about RTK itself and more about the who/how it's used and adapted, as you say. I feared that there would always be those who only saw RTK as this rigid static thing, abused and abandoned by n00bs. Anyway, back on topic? ;p

Last edited by ruiner (2009 October 28, 6:47 pm)

kazelee wrote:

ruiner wrote:

Anyway, back on topic? ;p

And yet... forever off.

Me or you? ;p

Thora wrote:

aren't you the same person?

そんなわけない

*sniff*

先輩 I thought you knew me. I thought... we had a connection. Excuse me while I go flail my huge man arms around whilst having a furious cry.

Tzadeck wrote:

Vash also uses it all the time in Trigun, often exclaiming it in bars after he has the first sip of his drink, 「生き返った！」  I think Misato might actually use it as a drinking phrase in an episode of Evangelion as well, I don't remember.

yeah, in episode 2. good point, that's lucid to me.

But what's indirect is not the Japanese sentence. It's the way you express ideas carried by Japanese indirect passive sentences that is indirect.

so what use would having a passive "live" verb be other than the idiomatic one you mentioned?