Mandarin · Chapter 9 · Lesson 3 · Grammar primer
Bei passive
Grammar for HSK 3.
The short version
Do not translate every English passive with 被 (bèi)
English reaches for the passive constantly and most of it is neutral. Mandarin prefers a plain active sentence or a topic-comment one: 饭做好了 (fàn zuò hǎo le) for 'the food has been cooked', with no 被 (bèi) anywhere. Reserve 被 (bèi) for when you actually want the affected-victim feel.
这本书是去年出版的。 Zhè běn shū shì qù nián chū bǎn de.
被 (bèi) leans towards bad news, and drops its agent
被 (bèi) traditionally carries an undertone of something unwelcome, which is why so many natural 被 (bèi) sentences are theft, damage or a telling-off. It is also the only one of the 把 (bǎ) / 被 (bèi) pair that lets the doer vanish entirely when nobody knows or cares who did it.
杯子被打破了。 Bēi zi bèi dǎ pò le.
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Lesson 3 of 9 in this chapter