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In active sentences, the verbs can be transitive and intransitive.

  * 私が消しゴムを落としました。I dropped an eraser. (transitive)
  * 私が走ります。I run. (intransitive)

But I got surprised that 見つかる which is an intransitive but it makes the
sentence has a passive meaning, for example:

  * 財布が見つかった。The wallet was found. 

Is there a better translation in English for it but with active form?

Why can an intransitive verb have a passive meaning in Japanese?
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grammar
Why can an intransitive verb have a passive meaning in Japanese?
Do you speak Scandinavian/Slavic?

"Кошелек **нашелся** " - exact one-to-one translation

"Lommeboka **fant seg** " (100% ungrammatical, but easily understood
regardless)

Afaik, there's no analogue in English. "Found itself", if it somehow helps you
understand.
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Many Japanese _active_ sentences are better translated into English using
passive voice, and vice versa. One well-known example is already found in your
question:

> I was surprised.  
>  私は驚【おどろ】いた。

Where 驚く is an intransitive verb, and 'surprise' is a transitive verb. (We
also have the transitive version 驚かす, but we say 私は驚かされた far less frequently
than English speakers say 'I was surprised').

Other examples:

  * 満足する be satisfied
  * 生まれる be born
  * がっかりする・落胆する be disappointed

So don't think that something has a universally passive meaning in all
languages.
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2015-08-09T12:41:47.573
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First,

> _Why can an intransitive verb has a passive meaning in Japanese?_

This question sounds like a pseudo-problem because there's actually no
"passive meaning" in the world. It seems to be true that you're so proficient
in English (unlike me) that you can sense "passive meaning" as like Germans
sense the gender of a noun (but occasionally [muddle them up in hazelnut
cream](https://german.stackexchange.com/a/8546)) or Japanese know the correct
counter word to use, but it's only a language-specific matter that can never
be generalized. French disagrees with German in gender, so does Korean with
Japanese in counters. Likewise, using passive or not is really depends on each
language (below is German):

> _Ich war erstaunt._ (lit. "I was astounded.") vs. _I was astounded._  
>  _Ich bin erschrocken._ (lit. "I've startled.") vs. _I was startled._  
>  _Ich habe mich gewundert._ (lit. "I've surprised/wondered myself.") vs. _I
> was surprised._

You can see German, a very close language to English, has three verbs each
takes different construction where English uses passive in all cases. "Passive
meaning" just doesn't exist.

So, the meaningful part in your question is: **_why we form phrases as_
「財布が見つかった」 _instead of_ 「財布が見つけられた」 _?_**

The answer is, Japanese passive ("～られる") is used _when you emphasizes external
interference_. It's not an convenient tool to make intransitive from
transitive. In other words, it sounds like "the wallet was found _by someone_
" rather than "the wallet was found". Since in most cases Japanese has proper
intransitive counterpart for each transitive verb, you should try using them
first, unless you believe whodunnit, howdunnit, or the fact it was done by
something else (e.g. it was intelligently designed!), are relevant
information.

* * *

Related answer: [Examples of when passive form in English takes active/non
passive form in Japanese](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/6788/7810)

Further reading:
[自動詞文と他動詞の受身文（中上級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック）](https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=0eprLex8sr0C&lpg=PA147&ots=4KGrr0DBoy&dq=%E8%B2%A1%E5%B8%83%E3%82%92%E8%90%BD%E3%81%A8%E3%81%97%E3%81%9F%20%E6%96%87%E6%B3%95&hl=ja&pg=PA152#v=onepage&q=%E8%B2%A1%E5%B8%83%E3%82%92%E8%90%BD%E3%81%A8%E3%81%97%E3%81%9F%20%E6%96%87%E6%B3%95&f=false)
(Japanese)
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Because 見つかる included a element of passive meaning.

見つかる is a complex word.

It can divide some units.

見る － 着く － らる みる － つく － らる

見る means look or see or watch. 着く means arrive or reach. らる means passive
voice. this is a origin of Auxiliary verb.

it conjugate like this: 1 みる － つく － らる 2 miru - tsuku - raru 3 mi - tsuku -
raru 4 mitsuku - raru 5 mitsuk - aru 6 mitsukaru 7 みつかる 8 見つかる
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