被 — the passive, and why Chinese uses it sparingly
被 makes a passive: 蛋糕被他吃了。 — The cake was eaten by him. The doer can be left out (我的车被偷了). Chinese uses it far less than English does, and traditionally for things that went wrong.
Structure
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Object + 被 + Doer + Verb + result/了
蛋糕被他吃了.
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Object + 被 + Verb + result/了
The doer is unknown or irrelevant: 我的车被偷了.
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Object + 让/叫/给 + Doer + Verb…
Colloquial equivalents of 被.
How it works
The 被 sentence is the mirror image of the 把 sentence: same event, but the thing affected becomes the subject. 他吃了蛋糕 → 蛋糕被他吃了。
Like 把, the verb cannot stand bare — a result or 了 must follow: 窗户被打破了。 And negation goes before 被: 我的车没被偷。
The doer is optional and frequently dropped, which is where 被 is most useful: 我的自行车被偷了。 (My bike was stolen.) In speech, 让, 叫 and 给 do the same job more casually — but those three require the doer to be named.
The important cultural point: Chinese uses the passive far less than English. Classically 被 carried a whiff of misfortune — being robbed, criticised, rained on. Neutral English passives usually become topic sentences in Chinese instead: "The letter was already sent" is most naturally 信已经寄了。 — no 被 at all. Modern written Chinese has loosened this under translation influence, but overusing 被 still marks a sentence as foreign.
Examples
Quick drill — 5 questions
Five fill-in-the-gap questions built from the example sentences above. No sign-up, no score kept — just a check that the pattern has actually landed.
Choose the word that belongs in the gap:
Common mistakes
| ✗ Wrong | ✓ Right | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 蛋糕被他吃。 | 蛋糕被他吃了。 | As with 把, the verb needs a result or 了 after it. |
| 我的车被没偷。 | 我的车没被偷。 | Negation goes before 被. |
| 这本书被很多人喜欢。 | 很多人喜欢这本书。 | Chinese avoids the passive for neutral, non-adverse statements. An active or topic sentence is the natural choice. |
被 passive — frequently asked questions
How do you make a passive sentence in Chinese?
Object + 被 + doer + verb + result: 蛋糕被他吃了 (the cake was eaten by him). The doer can be dropped when unknown or unimportant: 我的车被偷了 (my car was stolen).
Why does Chinese use the passive less than English?
Because 被 traditionally implies something adverse happened — being robbed, criticised, caught in the rain. Neutral English passives are usually rendered as topic sentences in Chinese: 信已经寄了 (the letter has been sent), with no 被 at all.
What is the difference between 被, 让, 叫 and 给?
They all form passives, but 让, 叫 and 给 are colloquial and require the doer to be stated: 我的钱包让小偷偷了. 被 is the standard, more formal choice and is the only one that works with the doer omitted.
What is the relationship between 把 and 被?
They describe the same event from opposite ends. 他把蛋糕吃了 (he ate the cake — focus on what he did to it) and 蛋糕被他吃了 (the cake was eaten by him — focus on what happened to it). Both require a result after the verb.
Next, learn
Put it to work
Drill the vocabulary for this level on the HSK 3 word list, rebuild scrambled sentences in the Sentence Builder, read graded stories that use this pattern in the story library, or follow a step-by-step route through the whole site in Guided Learning Paths.