第二年第三十八天

[nnozomi]

语法
Subject + 被 (+ doer) + V + 了, "to be ~ (by someone)," i.e. the passive voice
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Using_%22bei%22_sentences

词汇
词, word (it's self-referential day); 词典, dictionary; 词语, term; 生词, new word 词 cí, word; 词典 cídiǎn, dictionary; 词语 cíyǔ, term; 生词 shēngcí, new word
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-2-word-list/

Guardian:
可他是被谁杀的我现在一点线索都没有, but right now I don't have a clue whom he was killed by
谈啸先生，你被解雇了，滚吧, Mr. Tan Xiao, you've been fired, get your ass out of here
那你可能对好玩这个词有一些误会了, you may have misunderstood the word fun

Me:
树被台风撞到了，之后城市养了一些新树。
每次都每次都用词典查生词挺麻烦的。

Comments

[grayswandir]

I'm a bit confused about this bit from the Wiki:

If you're going to state who the verb was done by (the "doer"), then the subject doing the original action must be known.

What do they mean when they say the subject must be known? Does Mandarin not use the construction "被人[verb]" for a passive with an unknown subject? (Like 他被人打了 or similar?)

树被台风撞到了

撞倒, I think!

[trobadora]

Considering how often I've heard 他是被人杀的 in dramas, it's definitely used in Mandarin! *g*

[grayswandir]

I was pretty sure I'd heard it!

But in that case I wonder what the rule is supposed to mean...

[nnozomi]

What do they mean when they say the subject must be known?
yeah, I got nothing for that either, except that one of their examples does use 被谁. so maybe "who" and "someone"/人 count as being known, just in the sense that you have something to put in there?

树被台风撞到了
撞倒, I think!
谢谢！ I looked it up and I'm still not sure--I think 被撞到了 for "completed the action of being hit" and 被撞倒了 for "were knocked down," but you usually understand these things better than I do...
(I also started that sentence writing 书 instead of 树, how tall a pile of books oh dear. 脑子醒不来)

[grayswandir]

I looked it up and I'm still not sure--I think 被撞到了 for "completed the action of being hit" and 被撞倒了 for "were knocked down," but you usually understand these things better than I do...

I think I'm just hyper-aware of 倒 now after getting confused thinking 暈倒 was the same as 暈到 and being corrected by trobadora (in that post on your journal where you asked for different languages' ways of saying "dizzy"). XD Before that post I'd barely even noticed that they mean different things, thanks to Cantonese confusingly using the same pronunciation for both 倒 and 到-when-used-for-marking-completion. :P

That said, my reasoning for using 倒 here is that although I wasn't familiar with the word 撞倒 ("to knock down") before this, I do know 撞到 for "to run into" something/someone (including in the figurative sense, like "how nice to run into you here!"), and I don't think it implies that anything is knocked over or falls down, just that it gets hit. So in context, I think the wind "toppling" trees so they need to be replaced makes more sense than the wind just "running into" them.

[nnozomi]

No, on reflection I think you're right about 撞倒; you have such a clear mind about these things and I appreciate the discussion. You know, I don't think I've ever seen 倒到了, I wonder if it doesn't exist...

[trobadora]

Alas, can't think of any lyrics with 词. And I know some with 被, but none of them have 了:

我想什么没人懂，没有人歌颂，总有人被感动

执念是一种病，我想我难被治愈

喜欢被你送到家门，但不能请你喝咖啡

[nnozomi]

我想什么没人懂，没有人歌颂，总有人被感动
<3 <3 <3

I had to look up the others. Will add them to the list!

[trobadora]

I should have added links to the songs, sorry! Here are the non-Zhu Yilong ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZztefFf3ZaE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5qNOo_OxIE

[nnozomi]

Excellent, 谢谢！

[elenothar]

The bit I got hung up on was this:

"着 indicates an action is "ongoing," which is not appropriate for a 被 construction, which should refer to an already complete action."

So how does one express passive voice with ongoing things then? Is it a completely different construction? I peaked at the passive verbs with 受 page, which does seem to allow ongoing things, but it seems more specific (or maybe I'm getting confused by the other meaning of 受 here), idk

[grayswandir]

I was wondering about that too! I tried searching Pleco for "is being" in English, but unfortunately Pleco won't search sentence examples except the ones included in definitions, so there wasn't much there. However, I did notice that a lot of the examples I found used either 在 or 正在 (rather than 着) to indicate that something was ongoing.

None of the ongoing-passive examples I found on Pleco had 被 in them, but typing "He is being abused" into Google Translate gives me the translation "他正在被虐待," and "She is being fed" gives me "她正在被餵食。" I don't know if Google Translate is correct, but it seems like this might be the answer?

[Edited to add: Just now I thought to try searching Google for "正在被," and from a look at the first page, it does seem like this works for forming passive voice for things that are ongoing. However! One of the results on the first page was an album called "你正在被爱着"! So I also tried searching Google for "被*着" to see if people actually do use 着 with 被. Of course this shows results for any page where 被 and 着 appear with any words in between, so no telling how common it is without a lot more searching, BUT there are definitely a lot of passives with this construction showing up, e.g. a webnovel called "命运—被牵引着," a song called "你被爱着呀," a Mayo Clinic page on OCD with "您会觉得自己被驱使着去做一些强迫行为来缓解压力"... Maybe it's not strictly grammatically correct but people use it anyway??]

[Gratuitous stuff beyond this point. XD]

---

I also tried searching some other pages for information about forming the passive. Unfortunately, none of them mentioned anything about ongoing actions or 着, but there were some interesting points that might be worth sharing. This bit is from eastasiastudent.net:

The Mandarin 被 construction should only be used to indicate misfortune or adversity. If the situation is bad or undesirable in some way, the 被 construction can be used. Otherwise, a different sentence structure would be more appropriate (a 把 construction is often good).

So it seems it's not just for ongoing actions that you should avoid using 被 to form the passive. (Though it's also worth noting that the same page adds: "Whilst 被 should only be used for negative implications in Mandarin, its use is changing and more and more writers and speakers are using it as a general passive marker." I saw examples on some other pages where 被 seemed neutral as far as I could tell.)

From the same site as above:

It’s usually very easy to form a sentence without using the passive in Mandarin. A lot of the time, Mandarin sentences can do without a subject, so you can easily express that something was done without specifying who did it (a common reason for using the passive in English).

Another option, mentioned above, is to use a 把 construction. And of course, most sentences can just be arranged in a simple active structure.

An example of replacing 被 with 把, from writtenchinese.com:

被 and 把 can be used interchangeably in some cases:

她弄丢了钥匙。(tā nòng diū le yào shi) She lost the key.

她把钥匙弄丢了。(tā bǎ yào shi nòng diū le) She lost the key.

钥匙被她弄丢了。(yào shi bèi tā nòng diū le) The key was lost by her.

The same page also adds:

Some transitive verbs, which express mental processes, cannot be transformed into a 被 sentence, such as:

告诉 (gào su) to tell
等待 (děng dài) to wait
接近 (jiē jìn) to be close to
离开 (lí kāi) to leave
依靠 (yī kào) to rely on
服从 (fú cóng) to obey
害怕/怕 (hài pà) to fear
希望 (xī wàng) to hope
主张 (zhǔ zhāng) to claim
觉得 (jué de) to think

So I guess people can't "be obeyed," "be told," etc., with 被, either.

Further down the page is a note that "If the object is referent noun, it will not use 被 sentence." I'm not sure I understand what they mean by a "referent noun," but they have examples where the passive is simply implied, like:

信写好了。(xìn xiě hǎo le)
The letter was written.

碗洗好了。(wǎn xǐ hǎo le)
The bowl has been washed.

There's also a page on digmandarin that has more examples of passives that are simply implied (without 被 or 把), but no useful explanation of when you can or can't do this (just "sometimes, it is possible to leave out “被（Bèi)+agent” depending on the particular situation"). XD

饭做好了。(Fàn zuò hǎo le.)
The meal is ready.

作业写完了。(Zuòyè xiě wán le.)
The homework was finished.

电影票买好了。(Diàn yǐnɡpiào mǎi hǎo le.)
The movie ticket was bought.

电脑修好了。(Diànnǎo xiū hǎo le.)
The computer has been repaired.

That page includes a set of examples of the same sentence with and without 被+agent:

杯子被妹妹打碎了。
杯子被打碎了。
杯子打碎了。

(Sorry for the super long reply. I was really curious about this! And I'm still not sure how to know when it's okay to just leave the passive markers off completely...)

[nnozomi]

(racing around everywhere this morning and can't reply properly yet, but this is an awesome discussion, would you think about putting it up again as a separate post to the community?)