The 被 Passive, and Its Cousins 让, 叫, and 给

In a regular Chinese sentence, the subject does the action. But sometimes you want to talk about the thing that receives the action, especially when something bad or unwanted happened to it. That's where the passive comes in, and 被 (bèi) is the main word for it.

The basic 被 pattern

The structure looks like this:

Receiver + 被 + Doer + Verb + Result

• 我的钱包被小偷偷走了。(Wǒ de qiánbāo bèi xiǎotōu tōu zǒu le.) -- My wallet was stolen by a thief.
• 蛋糕被他吃完了。(Dàngāo bèi tā chī wán le.) -- The cake was eaten up by him.
• 窗户被风吹开了。(Chuānghù bèi fēng chuī kāi le.) -- The window was blown open by the wind.

Just like with 把, the verb in a 被 sentence almost always needs something attached to show the result. A bare verb on its own sounds unfinished.

The doer can be left out

If it's obvious who did something, or you don't know or don't want to say, you can drop the doer entirely. 被 stays, but nothing follows it before the verb.

• 我的自行车被偷了。(Wǒ de zìxíngchē bèi tōu le.) -- My bike was stolen.
• 这个问题已经被解决了。(Zhège wèntí yǐjīng bèi jiějué le.) -- This problem has already been solved.

This is the more common form in everyday speech.

被 usually sounds negative

This is worth knowing early. In English, the passive is neutral: "the report was written by Sarah" is just a fact. In Chinese, 被 carries a slight sense that something unwanted or unfortunate happened to the subject. Native speakers naturally reach for 被 when a wallet gets stolen, a plan gets ruined, or a secret gets found out.

For neutral or positive situations, Chinese usually just uses the active voice instead of reaching for 被. You would not typically say "I was praised by my teacher" with 被 in casual conversation, though it appears more freely in written and formal Chinese.

让, 叫, and 给: the informal cousins

In spoken Chinese, especially in northern dialects, 让 (ràng), 叫 (jiào), and 给 (gěi) can do the same job as 被. They all introduce the doer of the action.

让 (ràng) and 叫 (jiào) are the most common of the three:

• 我的作业让狗吃了。(Wǒ de zuòyè ràng gǒu chī le.) -- My homework was eaten by the dog.
• 他叫老师批评了。(Tā jiào lǎoshī pīpíng le.) -- He got criticized by the teacher.

These two are virtually interchangeable in this usage, and both feel more casual than 被.

给 (gěi) works the same way and is also quite common in spoken Chinese:

• 我的手机给他摔坏了。(Wǒ de shǒujī gěi tā shuāi huài le.) -- My phone was dropped and broken by him.
• 蛋糕给小孩吃完了。(Dàngāo gěi xiǎohái chī wán le.) -- The cake was finished off by the kid.

给 in this role is especially common in southern Chinese varieties and is spreading into general Mandarin speech.

How they compare at a glance

Word	Register	Notes
被	Neutral to formal	Works in writing and speech; slightly negative feel
让	Casual spoken	Very common in northern Mandarin
叫	Casual spoken	Interchangeable with 让 in this use
给	Casual spoken	Common in southern speech and spreading

All four introduce the doer of the action and carry that same "something happened to the subject" feeling. The choice between them is mostly about how formal your sentence is.

One thing to watch

Don't mix up 让 and 叫 in their passive role with their other meanings. 让 also means "to let" or "to allow," and 叫 also means "to call" or "to be called." Context usually makes it clear, but it can trip you up at first.

• 老师让我回答问题。(Lǎoshī ràng wǒ huídá wèntí.) -- The teacher asked me to answer the question. (让 = let/ask)
• 我的书让同学拿走了。(Wǒ de shū ràng tóngxué ná zǒu le.) -- My book was taken by a classmate. (让 = passive)

The passive version always has that same telltale structure: receiver + word + doer + verb + result.

Once you recognize the pattern, 被 and its cousins are easy to spot in the wild.