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I came across this sentence:

> 私はどんな動物に例えられるの？

And i was wondering how do you express the personal agent (the one who is
doing the comparing) in this sentence? Are they also marked by に? Or does the
sentence structure have to change in order to make this more natural?

> 私はどんな動物にアリスに例えられるの？

In all fairness this probably isn't the best example to use. I also came
across [this topic](http://www.guidetojapanese.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=254)
with the following example:

> お金は田中に渡された - The money was given to Tanaka

How would you express who gave the money to Tanaka in this passive
construction? And does this have a double meaning to also say _The money was
given by Tanaka_?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-02-22T20:45:38.317
22937
2016-04-17T01:17:00.623
2016-04-17T01:17:00.623
3896
question
grammar particles passive-voice によって-passives
The personal agent and indirect object in a passive sentence
The words that you are looking for are:

> 「～～に」 and
>
> 「～～によって」

I would, however, need to remind you that the reason for describing an event
(or situation) using the passive voice is often the very fact that the
personal agent is of little to no importance to the speaker and/or listener.

This, coupled with the fact that both subjects and objects are often not
mentioned in Japanese in the first place, can make your sentence sound
unnatural if you inserted a 「～～に」 or 「～～によって」.

With that in mind, one could say:

> 「[私]{わたし}はアリスにどんな[動物]{どうぶつ}に[例]{たと}えられるの？」, which sounds more natural than
>
> your own 「私はどんな動物にアリスに例えられるの？」, but both are correct.

Both mean "What kind of animal would I be compared to by Alice?"

Moving on to the money story...

To express who gave the money to Tanaka in the sentence:

> 「お[金]{かね}は[田中]{たなか}に[渡]{わた}された。」,

you can insert "by someone" right after お金は.

> 「お金は **スミスによって** 田中に渡された。」= "The money was given to Tanaka by Smith."

In this case, it would be better using 「によって」 because a 「スミスに田中に」 would sound
kind of clumsy with the "name に name に" structure.

As long as one avoids using the "name に name に" structure, one could use
either 「に」 or 「によって」 to express a personal agent. When mentioning the personal
agent is important or crucial, one would definitely choose 「によって」 over a plain
「に」.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-02-23T01:11:13.390
22938
2015-02-23T01:11:13.390
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
22937
answer