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Consider the following sentences:

> A: 私が警察に捕まえられた。
>
> B: 私が警察に捕まった。

Both mean _**I was caught by the police**_.

# Question

What is the difference between 捕まえられた and 捕まった ?
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2016-06-28T08:29:38.643
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2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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meaning passive-voice transitivity
What is the difference between 捕まえられた and 捕まった?
Both sentences are correct and the same in meaning, but sentence B is far more
common and sounds natural.

For some reason, some Japanese verbs intrinsically have passive meanings, and
they are used more commonly than the `transitive verb + ～れる/られる` version.

See the following question for the list of such verbs.

  * [Other uses of the particle に in お兄ちゃんには見つからない](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/30577/5010)

This question is also related: [ところを 見つかる, this was in a highly reputable
dictionary](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/23404/5010)
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I agree with Takahiro's comment above and naruto's answer about 捕まった being the
more natural way of saying it. 捕まえられる does work as well though and I'm sure
you do hear it from time to time.

I think this may be a case of the way that Japanese verbs work generating two
ways of saying more or less the same thing.

## 「つかみ敢{あ}ふ」の転か

> tsukam + a + e + ru

In the 大辞林 definition of 捕{と}らえる it mentions that the origin of that word may
be 取り敢{あ}ふ.

捕まえる may have similar origins. The root "tsukam" may have been attached to the
Classical Japanese helping verb 敢ふ which carries the idea of "to completely do
something"（完全に．．．を成し遂げる）, sort of like the modern 「してしまう」.  
You see it in 取{と}り敢{あ}えず and 敢{あ}えて for Modern Japanese.

敢ふ is using the old kana spelling（旧仮名遣い）、 so it would be pronounced あう in
Modern Japanese.

This would produce the word 「つか **みあ** える」which would then have been
phonetically simplified（音便）to 「捕 **ま** える」.

捕まえる could then be broken down like this:

> **つかm + 敢{あ} + え + る**

つかむ + 敢ふ would have taken on a meaning like **すっかりつかんでしまう** 、which may have
led to it's modern usage. So, we now have in Modern Japanese:

  * 掴{つか}む - transitive - to take hold of
  * 捕まる - intransitive - to be caught
  * 捕まえる - transitive - to catch

Since there's a pair of verbs, one transitive and the other intransitive it
becomes possible to express passivity ("be caught") in two ways with no real
change in meaning.

捕まった has less going on grammatically (it doesn't need to be put into the
passive voice), so it's the more natural choice most of the time.
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