Sonkeigo via the Passive Form (～られる): The Respectful Use of れる・られる
Sonkeigo via the passive form ～られる takes the passive auxiliary れる・られる and reuses it as respectful language (尊敬語), raising up the person who performs the verb.1 For a learner who already knows passive morphology, this means one familiar form quietly does a second job: showing respect.
Overview
The honorific れる・られる is the same れる・られる that builds the passive voice. It attaches the same way to the same verb stems.23 What changes is the meaning. Here the form points respect at the subject, the person doing the action, rather than describing something done to a patient.
This article does three things: places the form on the politeness ladder, lays out the four meanings れる・られる can carry, and gives a concrete method for telling those meanings apart in context.
What "sonkeigo via the passive" means
The 文化庁 report 『敬語の指針』 defines 尊敬語 (sonkeigo, respectful language) as language describing the actions, things, or states of 「相手側又は第三者」 (the addressee's side or a third party), 「その人物を立てて述べるもの」 (speaking in a way that raises that person up).1 The respect of the honorific れる・られる therefore points at the subject, the actor performing the verb.
The 文化庁 lists 「読まれる」 and 「始められる」 directly among the 尊敬語 example forms for actions, on the same line as お使いになる (use, honorific) and 御利用になる (use, honorific).1 This establishes れる・られる as an officially recognized sonkeigo form, not merely a colloquial extension.
The honorific reading carries no adversity or "suffering passive" nuance. Wiktionary's auxiliary-verb entry treats the honorific as a distinct sense, "Forms a light honorific expression," separate from the passive sense and arising "by extension of the indirect sense of the passive."23
Where it sits on the politeness ladder
The honorific れる・られる is genuine sonkeigo. It therefore ranks above plain and polite (teineigo) speech, which mark politeness toward the listener rather than respect toward the subject.1 Wiktionary characterizes the れる・られる honorific as a "light honorific" sense, which supports treating it as lightly elevated.23
The 文化庁 ranks the passive-honorific below the dedicated honorific verb for the same meaning. On whether 「先生も行かれますか。」 (Teacher, are you going too?) was appropriate, the report states that 「行かれますか。」 is by no means wrong as a respectful expression. But in the Tokyo area, いらっしゃる has 「敬語の程度が高く」 (a higher degree of honorific) than 行かれる and is more general.4 So a special sonkeigo verb outranks the passive-honorific built from the same plain verb.
The 文化庁 sources only one rung directly: 行かれる (passive-honorific) sits below いらっしゃる (a dedicated sonkeigo verb).4 The further claim that れる・られる is less elevated than お〜になる is a common convention in learner materials and classroom teaching, not a statement found in the 文化庁 report. The "light honorific" framing supports calling れる・られる lightly elevated, but the precise rung against お〜になる is pedagogical, not primary-source.23
A workable ordering runs from plain speech up to dedicated honorific verbs. The れる・られる-versus-お〜になる step should be read as the teaching convention described above.
| Rung | Form | What it marks |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest | plain / teineigo (です・ます) | politeness toward the listener1 |
| Lightly elevated | れる・られる | respect toward the subject (light honorific)23 |
| Higher (teaching convention) | お〜になる | respect toward the subject, productive template5 |
| Highest | dedicated sonkeigo verbs (いらっしゃる, 召し上がる) | respect toward the subject, unambiguous4 |
JLPT level and register
Mainstream graded references treat the honorific れる・られる as N3-level keigo grammar, alongside the お〜になる pattern it competes with. No JLPT body assigns the form an official number. The level comes from convergent reference grouping and the 文化庁's listing of it among the standard productive 尊敬語 forms.1
The form is a workhorse of spoken and business keigo because it is short and fully productive, attaching to any verb. 文化庁 frequency data shows how common it is. In a 1997 survey, when asking a superior 「あしたの会議で意見を言うか」 (whether they will give an opinion at tomorrow's meeting), the passive-honorific 「言われますか」 was chosen by 34.1% of respondents in Kantō and 48.1% in Kinki, compared with おっしゃいますか at 41.2% and 40.4%.4
Form and conjugation
Attaching れる / られる
The attachment rules are identical to the plain passive in every verb class. This identity is the source of the four-way ambiguity treated later.23
For 五段 (u-verbs), attach 〜れる to the 未然形 (mizenkei, the a-stem). Wiktionary states that classes other than ichidan and irregular take れる. Ichidan and irregular verbs take られる.3 The 文化庁 cites 「読まれる」 (読む → 読ま + れる) as a 尊敬語.1
For 一段 (ichidan, ru-verbs), attach 〜られる to the stem. Wiktionary notes られる 「attaches only to the 未然形 of Group II (ichidan) and Group III (irregular) verbs」.2 So 始める → 始められる and 見る → 見られる.
The irregular verbs have their own forms: する → される, and 来る (くる) → 来られる (こられる).62 The 文化庁 discusses the 「御利用される」 type as 御利用 + される, that is, the される form of する.6
| Base verb | Class | Honorific 〜(ら)れる form |
|---|---|---|
| 読む yomu | u-verb | 読まれる yomareru1 |
| 始める hajimeru | ru-verb | 始められる hajimerareru1 |
| 利用する riyō-suru | suru | 利用される riyō-sareru6 |
| 来る kuru | kuru | 来られる korareru2 |
How it combines with ます, て-form, and tense
After attachment, 〜(ら)れる behaves as a regular 一段 (ru-type) verb and takes the full set of inflections. Wiktionary's conjugation table for られる shows polite (ます), perfective, negative, and conditional forms built on this ru-verb base.2
The ます-form appears in attested honorific use:
先生も行かれますか。4
"Are you (teacher) also going?"
An honorific built on the same base appears inside an embedded clause:
私たちの先生は、五分位で戻られると思います。3
"I/We think that our teacher will be back in about five minutes."
The te-form (読まれて) and past (読まれた) follow the same regular ru-verb inflection on the 〜れる base.2
Why ら is NOT dropped here
ら抜き言葉 (ra-deletion, as in 見れる, 食べれる, 来れる) is a colloquial contraction of the potential of ichidan and 来る verbs only. Wiktionary notes for られる that 「A colloquial trend called ら抜き言葉 shortens られる to れる in potential contexts.」2
The honorific, passive, and spontaneous readings keep the ら: 見られる, 食べられる, 来られる. The presence or absence of ら is therefore a reliable parsing cue. A ら-less 食べれる can only be potential, while 食べられる may be potential, passive, honorific, or spontaneous.2
The four meanings of れる・られる
The four readings
One form carries four grammatical jobs. Wiktionary's auxiliary entries enumerate all four senses:
- 受身 / passive: "Makes the passive voice."2
- 可能 / potential: "Makes the potential form; -able, -ible."2 In modern usage, this potential is largely restricted to u-verbs. For ichidan verbs, it is the reading that ら抜き shortens.23
- 自発 / spontaneous: "Shows a spontaneous action."23
- 尊敬 / honorific: "Forms a light honorific expression."23
This 受身・可能・自発・尊敬 split is the standard analysis of the auxiliary れる・られる, inherited from the classical auxiliaries る・らる.
How context disambiguates
Four cues sort the readings: who the subject is, whether に marks an agent, whether the verb is one of emotion or cognition, and whether the frame is about ability. Checking them in order resolves most cases.
You can read the decision as a single flow.
When the subject is a person being raised up (先生, 社長, or a customer) and the surrounding speech is in keigo register, the reading is honorific. The 文化庁 frames sonkeigo precisely as raising 「相手側又は第三者」 (the addressee's side or a third party).1
私たちの先生は、五分位で戻られると思います。3
"I/We think that our teacher will be back in about five minutes."
When a 〜に phrase names the doer of the action, the reading is passive.
彼は母親に叱られた。7
"He was scolded by his mother."
先生に褒められたの？8
"Were you praised by the teacher?"
When the verb is one of emotion or cognition (思う, 案じる, 思い出す, 偲ぶ) and has no controlling agent, the reading is spontaneous: the feeling or thought comes about naturally rather than being done by someone.
この土壌では何も育たないように思われる。9
"Nothing seems to grow in this soil."
When the frame is about ability or possibility, often with a negative, the reading is potential. For ichidan and 来る verbs this is the one reading that may drop ら in casual speech.
信じられない！10
"(I) can't believe it!"
With a verb like 思う, the same surface form 思われる can be spontaneous (a neutral subject, "it seems") or honorific (asking a respected listener's view in polite register). 「どう思われますか？」 reads as "What do you think?" because the honored second-person subject and keigo register tip it toward honorific.11 The cues, not the bare form, decide the reading.
Worked contrasts
The same surface forms parse differently under each reading. The contrasts below are anchored to verified sentences.
For 思われる (from 思う), the spontaneous and honorific readings split by subject and register:
この土壌では何も育たないように思われる。9
"Nothing seems to grow in this soil."
どう思われますか？11
"What do you think?"
For 行かれる (行く), the honorific reading is the one in play, though it ranks below いらっしゃる:
先生も行かれますか。4
"Are you (teacher) also going?"
For 戻られる (from 戻る), the honorific reading comes from an honored subject and the absence of any に-agent:
私たちの先生は、五分位で戻られると思います。3
"I/We think that our teacher will be back in about five minutes."
The potential and passive readings appear with other verbs. 信じられる carries the potential:
信じられない！10
"(I) can't believe it!"
The u-verb 刺す takes the passive with a に-agent:
蚊に刺された。12
"I got bitten by mosquitoes."
Nuance and usage contexts
When られる is the natural choice
れる・られる is the default spoken sonkeigo in many settings because it is brief and fully productive, working on any verb with no memorized special form. These traits make it natural in spoken and semi-formal business contexts. 文化庁 frequency data shows 「言われますか」 chosen by a third to nearly half of speakers when addressing a superior, depending on region.4
It is genuine, correct sonkeigo. The 文化庁 states plainly that 「行かれますか。」 is by no means wrong as a respectful expression.4
られる vs お〜になる vs irregular sonkeigo verbs
For verbs with a dedicated special sonkeigo form, that form is the higher and more usual choice. The 文化庁 ranks いらっしゃる above 行かれる, calling it 「敬語の程度が高く，より一般的」.4 By the same logic, the highest register generally prefers 召し上がる over 食べられる, and いらっしゃる over 来られる.
お〜になる is the standard productive sonkeigo template the 文化庁 documents in detail. 和語 verbs (native Japanese verbs) take お…になる (読む → お読みになる), and 漢語サ変 verbs (Sino-Japanese suru verbs) take ご…になる (利用する → ご利用になる).5 The report treats it as the canonical productive form and gives its sub-rules for potential forms, irregular forms, and forms that cannot use the pattern.5
The 文化庁 notes that 「御利用される」 and 「御説明される」 type forms are 「本来，尊敬語の適切な形ではないとされている」 (not originally regarded as appropriate sonkeigo). The reason is that they parse as the 謙譲語Ⅰ pattern ご…する plus れる. Plain 「利用される」 (される attached to 利用する) is fine, but 「御利用される」 is normatively dispreferred.6
The ambiguity-avoidance tradeoff
れる・られる is convenient and productive, but readers may misread it as passive, potential, or spontaneous because all four readings share one form.23 お〜になる and the special sonkeigo verbs (いらっしゃる, 召し上がる) cannot be anything but honorific, so they are unambiguous.4
That is the core tradeoff: a productive form you do not have to memorize, versus a form that can only mean respect. When clarity matters and a dedicated verb exists, the dedicated verb removes the guesswork.
Good to know
ら-deletion (ら抜き言葉) only touches the potential reading
食べれる, 見れる, and 来れる are casual potential forms. The honorific, passive, and spontaneous readings always keep ら, giving 食べられる, 見られる, 来られる. Wiktionary notes that ら抜き言葉 「shortens られる to れる in potential contexts.」2 A ら-less form is potential, never honorific, which makes the missing ら a reliable parsing cue.
Stacking られる on top of another sonkeigo makes 二重敬語
A form like お読みになられる stacks 〜れる on top of the already-honorific お読みになる. The 文化庁 names exactly this 「お読みになられる」 as 二重敬語: 読む is first made sonkeigo as お読みになる, then sonkeigo 「……れる」 is added again. The report states that 二重敬語 「は，一般に適切ではないとされている。」13 (is generally considered inappropriate). Use a single honorific instead:
お読みになる13
"reads (honorific)"
The plain passive-honorific 読まれる is also fine on its own; what is dispreferred is stacking the two.
One passive shell, four passengers
The single form 〜(ら)れる carries four meanings, so reading it means checking the cues in order. Who is the subject? An honored person points to honorific. Is there a 〜に agent? That points to passive. Is the verb one of emotion or thought? That points to spontaneous. Is the frame about ability? That points to potential. This order turns the disambiguation cues into a practical checklist.23
The respect grows out of the passive's agent-defocusing
Wiktionary derives the honorific sense 「by extension of the indirect sense of the passive」.3 By not presenting the action as the honored person's direct, intentional act, the speaker keeps a respectful distance. The modern honorific is, in effect, the passive's indirectness repurposed as politeness.
Regional weighting differs
The 文化庁 1997 survey shows 「言われますか」 (passive-honorific) selected more often in Kinki (48.1%) than in Kantō (34.1%), where おっしゃいますか leads. In central Tokyo, おっしゃいますか rises to 47.1%.4 In the Tokyo area specifically, the special verb いらっしゃる is judged higher and more general than 行かれる.4 Kansai also has its own 〜はる sonkeigo, which the 文化庁 calls 「全国共通語の『〜れる・〜られる』と似た意味の尊敬語」 (a respectful form with a meaning similar to standard Japanese 〜れる・〜られる).14
See also
- O + Verb Stem + Ni Naru (お〜になる): The Productive Sonkeigo Honorific Form
- Irregular Sonkeigo Verbs: The Special Respectful Verb Forms (いらっしゃる, 召し上がる, おっしゃる)
- How to Choose the Right Keigo Level: A Practical Guide
- Asymmetric Keigo: Humbling Your Own Boss (Uchi-Soto)
- Causative-Passive Form (使役受身): "Was Made to Do" with ～させられる