4949
Okay, so I'm confused about passive verbs. From how I understand it, the verb
is performed on the subject. But how come you can say something like:

> 明日の会議に行かれるんですか？  
>  Are you going to tomorrow's meeting?

Why not something along the lines of:

> 明日の会議に行きませんか？

So as far as I can tell, "go" (行かれる) is not performed on the subject, you
(implied).

Could someone explain how this works in this sentence?
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2012-03-07T15:23:39.223
4946
2023-08-29T04:14:02.940
2023-08-29T04:14:02.940
9831
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question
verbs passive-voice honorifics
Passive verb forms for intransitive verbs: 「行かれるんですか？」
I don't understand at all what you mean by "performed on the subject", but in
the most natural interpretation, the sentence you gave is not passive. It is
subject honorific form. And the sentence `明日の会議に行きませんか？` that you suggested
will mean a different thing.

And although very unnatural, it is in principle possible to interpret your
example as passive. In that case, it will not be a direct (ordinary) passive,
but will be adversative (aka indirect) passive, meaning someone did something,
which (often negatively) affected the subject. The standard way to literally
translate this into English is to use `on <subject>`.

> 雨に降られた  
>  '{The rain fell/It rained} **on** me.'  
>  '{The rain fell/It rained}, affecting me.'
>
> 二階の人にピアノを弾かれた  
>  'The person on the second floor played the piano **on** me.'  
>  'The person on the second floor played the piano, affecting me.'

So a very unnatural interpretation of your sentence as adversative passive
will be like this:

> 明日の会議に行かれるんですか？  
>  'Will the person go to tomorrow's meeting **on** you?'  
>  'Will it be the case that you will be (negatively) affected due to the
> person's going to tomorrow's meeting?'
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2012-03-07T15:30:04.570
4947
2012-03-07T15:41:46.397
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
4946
answer
```

    明日の会議に行かれるんですか？ Are you going to tomorrow's meeting?
    
```

The above sentence should not be interpreted as passive, it is 敬語. In other
words depending on context, the forms される、行かれる、etc. can mean either passive or
honorific form (usually it is easy to tell the difference by the context).
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2012-03-07T20:42:36.560
4949
2012-03-07T23:24:05.593
2012-03-07T23:24:05.593
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answer