Causative vs Causative Passive in Japanese
The causative (使役, ～せる/～させる) means you make or let someone else do something. The causative passive (使役受身, ～せられる/～させられる) means someone made you do something, and you would rather they had not. It is the same event described from the opposite chair: the causative is told by the person applying the pressure, the causative passive by the person receiving it.
I build BetterLingo, and I am also studying for N2 in Japan, which means this is the grammar point I have re-learned more times than any other. Not because the conjugation is hard — it is mechanical — but because in a real sentence the two forms look almost identical and differ by two syllables buried at the end of a long verb. Every textbook teaches the conjugation. Almost none teach the thing that actually goes wrong, which is reading the sentence fast and attaching the pressure to the wrong person.
The one-line difference
Take one event — a teacher, some students, a book that gets read — and write it twice.
- Causative: 先生は学生に本を読ませた。
The teacher made the students read the book. The teacher is the topic. The teacher is the one doing something. - Causative passive: 学生は先生に本を読ませられた。
The students were made to read the book by the teacher. The students are the topic. The teacher has been demoted to a に phrase.
Nothing about the world changed. The book got read either way. What changed is who the sentence is about.
Read the particles, then the ending
Here is the part that trips people up: both forms use に, so に alone will not tell you which one you are looking at. What に marks flips depending on the ending.
| Form | は marks | に marks | Verb ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Causative 使役 | the one applying pressure | the one who acts | ～せる / ～させる |
| Causative passive 使役受身 | the one who acts, unwillingly | the one applying pressure | ～せられる / ～させられる |
So the practical reading order is: find は, find に, then read the verb ending, and let the ending decide which of the two people you just met is the one being squeezed. If you read the ending first and skim the particles, you will get it right in a textbook exercise and wrong in a real paragraph, because in a real paragraph は is usually two sentences back and dropped.
One more note on particles: with a transitive verb the actor takes に (先生は学生に本を読ませた). With an intransitive verb the causative can take を instead — 先生は学生を立たせた, the teacher made the students stand — and that を is a reliable signal you are in causative territory, not passive.
Conjugation: build the second form out of the first
Do not memorise the causative passive as a separate form. Make the causative first, then passivise it. It is two steps and they never change.
| Verb type | Dictionary | Causative (make/let) | Causative passive (be made to) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Godan (u-verb) | 飲む | 飲ませる | 飲ませられる |
| Godan (u-verb) | 待つ | 待たせる | 待たせられる |
| Ichidan (ru-verb) | 食べる | 食べさせる | 食べさせられる |
| Irregular | する | させる | させられる |
| Irregular | 来る | 来させる (こさせる) | 来させられる (こさせられる) |
Step 1 — causative. For godan verbs, move the final -u sound to the -a row and add せる (飲む → 飲ま → 飲ませる). For ichidan verbs, drop る and add させる (食べる → 食べさせる).
Step 2 — passivise the result. Every causative form is an ichidan verb, whatever the original was. So the rule is always the same: drop the final る, add られる. 飲ませる → 飲ませられる. 食べさせる → 食べさせられる. That is the whole thing.
The short form ～される, and the one group it does not work on
For godan verbs, spoken Japanese usually contracts ～せられる to ～される:
- 飲ませられる → 飲まされる — to be made to drink
- 待たせられる → 待たされる — to be kept waiting
- 払わせられる → 払わされる — to be made to pay
This is not slang. 待たされた is what you will actually hear, and the full 待たせられた sounds stiff. But there is one exception worth knowing before N3: godan verbs ending in す do not contract. 話す gives 話させられる, never ×話さされる — the short form would collide with the ordinary passive 話される. Ichidan verbs have no short form at all: 食べさせられる stays as it is.
Why させられる sounds like a complaint
The causative passive is grammatically neutral and pragmatically loaded. Native speakers reach for it when the action was unwelcome. 毎日残業させられた is not a neutral report that overtime occurred; it is they made me do overtime every day, with the annoyance built into the grammar rather than added by an adverb.
Compare the same event framed three ways:
- 部長に手伝わせられた。I was made to help the manager. Resentful.
- 部長を手伝った。I helped the manager. Neutral.
- 部長に手伝わせてもらった。I was allowed to help the manager. Grateful — the causative plus もらう, which is the polite mirror image of the same structure.
If you are writing a JLPT composition or an email, that last one matters: させてもらう and させていただく are the causative doing humble work, not passive work. Same せる, opposite social direction.
The three sentences that catch everyone out
This is the set worth drilling, because the third one is the coat of paint most guides leave off. Plain passive belongs in this comparison, not in a separate lesson.
- 母は妹に部屋を掃除させた。
Mum made my sister clean the room. (causative — mum applies pressure, sister cleans) - 妹は母に部屋を掃除させられた。
My sister was made to clean the room by mum. (causative passive — same event, sister's view, sister cleans) - 妹は母に部屋を掃除された。
My sister had her room cleaned by mum. (plain passive — mum cleans, and the sister is annoyed about it)
Sentence 3 is the famous "suffering passive": nobody was forced to do anything, someone did something that affected you, and you did not appreciate it. Notice that 1 and 2 have the sister holding the broom and 3 has mum holding it. Two syllables of difference, opposite person doing the work. This is why reading the ending carefully is not pedantry.
Practice: eight to self-check
Convert or translate, then check yourself against the answers below. Do it in writing — recognising the right answer in a multiple-choice list is a much easier task than producing it, and the JLPT will not always give you the list.
- Make the causative and causative passive of 書く.
- Make the causative and causative passive of 覚える.
- Make the causative and causative passive of 来る.
- Contract to the short form: 歌わせられる.
- Why is ×働かさせられる wrong, and what is correct?
- Translate: My boss made me write the report. (boss's point of view)
- Translate: I was made to write the report by my boss. (my point of view)
- What is the difference between 子供に野菜を食べさせた and 子供に野菜を食べられた?
Answers. 1. 書かせる / 書かせられる (short: 書かされる). 2. 覚えさせる / 覚えさせられる (no short form — ichidan). 3. 来させる / 来させられる. 4. 歌わされる. 5. 働く is godan, so the causative is 働かせる, not ×働かさせる; the causative passive is 働かせられる, contracted 働かされる. 6. 部長は私に報告書を書かせた。 7. 私は部長に報告書を書かせられた (or 書かされた)。 8. The first is causative — I made the child eat vegetables, the child eats. The second is plain passive — the child ate my vegetables (on me), and I am not pleased.
How to stop re-learning this
The conjugation is not what fails under exam pressure; the reading is. Two habits fix it:
- Always name the two people out loud before you translate. Who is applying pressure, who is doing the action. If you cannot answer both, you have not parsed the sentence yet, no matter how confident the ending feels.
- Produce, do not recognise. Write the sentence from English into Japanese, or from the causative into the causative passive. Recognition drills let you pass on a hunch; production forces you to commit to who is in which chair.
If you want to see these forms in running text rather than isolated sentences, the free N3 reading practice stories put them in context with furigana and English, which is where the particle-reading habit actually gets built. Our other guides live on the Learn hub.
The 30-second version
- 使役 ～せる/～させる = I make/let you do it. は = the one pushing, に = the one acting.
- 使役受身 ～せられる/～させられる = I was made to do it. は = the one acting, に = the one pushing.
- Build the second from the first: make the causative, drop る, add られる.
- Godan verbs contract to ～される (待たされる) — except す-verbs (話させられる stays).
- させられる carries reluctance; させてもらう is the same structure being grateful.
- Do not confuse the causative passive with the plain passive: 掃除させられた = you cleaned; 掃除された = someone else cleaned, on you.
Next steps
Take the eight items above and write them out by hand before you look at the answers, then come back in three days and do them again cold — that gap is what turns a form you can conjugate into one you can read at speed. If you want the same thing checked for you rather than self-marked, BetterLingo grades free-form Japanese answers instead of multiple choice, which is the only way to catch the case where you produced a real sentence that means the opposite of what you intended.