「見える」と「見られる」

[J44xm]

Hello again! Man, I feel kind of bad about not posting so much in the past few months, but I'm pretty busy with school and studying. Well, I guess over 90% of my posts are just annoying Japanese questions anyway. Just like this one:

Today in class, we covered the potential verb tense (可能動詞). Toward the end of the lesson, our sensei was trying to explain the difference between 「見える」 and 「見られる」 but I couldn't pick up on the subtleties. (That's one of the disadvantages of a Japanese-only approach at the lower levels: sometimes it's pretty difficult to get across subtle things like this.) It was the same with 「聞こえる」 and 「聞ける」 as well

In searching the Web for good information about this (and pretty much failing), I found an interesting-looking Japanese paper (http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:62UBBuam7RAJ:www.bunka.or.kr/ronbun/no10/yamauchi.hwp+mieru+mirareru&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12) about the subject with the following English abstract:

The purpose of this paper is clarifying the difference between “-ga mieru” and “-ga mirareru”. “Mirareru” is the potential form of the verb “miru” and “mieru” is the “jihatsu” form of it, which is a kind of potential form but not the regular potential form. Therefor “mieru” and “mirareru” belong to the quite different grammatical categories. The both, however, have much similarity in meaning. There are actually many situations where both “mieru” and “mirareru” seem to be usable. In such situations “mieru” is preferred to “mirareru” because Japanese language has the tendency that the expressions of “jihatsu” is preferred to the ones of potential.
So might someone offer some real-world advice and guidance about this? Many thanks.

(Edit: This is my three hundredth post! やった！)

[JimmySeal]

(That's one of the disadvantages of a Japanese-only approach at the lower levels: sometimes it's pretty difficult to get across subtle things like this.)
I know what you mean.


Basically 見られる and 聞ける focus on a person's ability and 見える and 聞こえる deal with the audibility/visibility of something, so to sort of gloss over their meanings:
見られる can watch, see, look
見える is visible
聞ける can listen, hear, ask
聞こえる is audible

So if you wanted to say "I couldn't watch that football game." 'cause you were doing something else, use 見られる, but if you want to say "Can you see that bird?" use 見える.
To say you couldn't listen to what someone was saying because you were concentrating on something else, go with 聞ける, but to say you couldn't hear what they said because the room was noisy, 聞こえる is the right choice.

I think that's correct, at least.

[undrentide]

Hello again! Man, I feel kind of bad about not posting so much in the past few months, but I'm pretty busy with school and studying. Well, I guess over 90% of my posts are just annoying Japanese questions anyway. Just like this one:
Today in class, we covered the potential verb tense (可能動詞). Toward the end of the lesson, our sensei was trying to explain the difference between 「見える」 and 「見られる」 but I couldn't pick up on the subtleties. (That's one of the disadvantages of a Japanese-only approach at the lower levels: sometimes it's pretty difficult to get across subtle things like this.) It was the same with 「聞こえる」 and 「聞ける」 as well


Hi J44xm! You seem to be enjoying studying in Japan! :-)

Well, about 見える and 見られる, maybe it is easier to understand if you add 見る.

富士山を見る
You see the mountain. In this case, you see it with intention to see it - you see it with your own will.

富士山が見える
You see the mountain, but here the mountain kind of jump into your sight whether you want to see or not. As if the mountain is seen spontaneously.
Or situation allows you to see it.

富士山が見られる
You can see the mountain, or the mountain can be seen.
られる means potential, but it also means passive.
Interpretation of the above sentence can be either, depending on the context.
If you want to emphasize the potential, 〜ことができる makes it clearer.
（富士山を見ることができる）

Same about 聞く・聞こえる・聞ける

聞こえる is when you hear something even you did not try to do so.
e.g.
山に行けば鳥の声が聞こえる
If you go to mountains, you'll hear the birds sing.
山に行けば鳥の声が聞ける
If you go to mountains, you can hear the birds sing.

...does the above make sense to you? :relief:

[J44xm]

Thank you both for the replies.

I think I've kind of got it. So as I understand, 「見える」 and 「聞こえる」 are kind of similar to the use of 「と」 as a conditional in that they can imply a naturally-occurring event whereas 「見られる」 and 「聞ける」 have more of an uncertain feel to them. How's that?

[Damicci]

見る to see to watch
見える　To be seen, to be in sight, to seem
見られる　（見るPassive or Potential）

Looks 見える according to Rikai means more of becoming visible.
I think the certainty is there but maybe it depends on the condition of why you can or cannot see an object.

[Elizabeth]

見る to see to watch
見える　To be seen, to be in sight, to seem
見られる　（見るPassive or Potential）
Looks 見える according to Rikai means more of becoming visible.
I think the certainty is there but maybe it depends on the condition of why you can or cannot see an object.
"It is seen as" or "someone is seen like" in the nonvisible sense of appears to be is a good way to understand 見られる .
For instance XXX 軽く見られるときもあるからです。(because sometimes I'm not taken seriously). Although this could also conceivably be potential I think depending on context.

[Elizabeth]

富士山を見る
You see the mountain. In this case, you see it with intention to see it - you see it with your own will.
富士山が見える
You see the mountain, but here the mountain kind of jump into your sight whether you want to see or not. As if the mountain is seen spontaneously.
Or situation allows you to see it.
富士山が見られる
You can see the mountain, or the mountain can be seen.
られる means potential, but it also means passive.
Interpretation of the above sentence can be either, depending on the context.
If you want to emphasize the potential, 〜ことができる makes it clearer.
（富士山を見ることができる）

So 富士山を見ることができる as the potential form it seems can also give the additional information that you want to see the mountain and that the mountain is there when you want to see it whereas 見える simply says that the mountain happens to be within sight.

[Damicci]

"It is seen as" or "someone is seen like" in the nonvisible sense of appears to be is a good way to understand 見られる .
For instance XXX 軽く見られるときもあるからです。(because sometimes I'm not taken seriously). Although this could also conceivably be potentially I think depending on context.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Yeah yeah I get it. Thank you! :p
眠く見られるから、寝てください。

[Elizabeth]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Yeah yeah I get it. Thank you! :p
眠く見られるから、寝てください。
どうもありがとう。えー！！まあ、今週、睡眠を取るのを忘れてしまったよ。
:sleep:

でも、まちがいとしか考えられませんね。 I mean that was just my idea as one way to talk about 見られる to distinguish it from 見える。There are other uses too as undrentide mentioned. :relief::p

[epigene]

Thank you both for the replies.

I think I've kind of got it. So as I understand, 「見える」 and 「聞こえる」 are kind of similar to the use of 「と」 as a conditional in that they can imply a naturally-occurring event whereas 「見られる」 and 「聞ける」 have more of an uncertain feel to them. How's that?
I think undrentide explained it already, but I'll just put it another way.

"Mirareru" and "kikeru" state only the objective fact that "there is a possibility" of seeing/hearing that most likely is not happening when it is spoken. It can be used to state a fact that you don't expect to happen at the moment. You are in a passive state in which whether the phenomenon happens or not is beyond your control.

"Fujisan ga mirareru" suggests that "it is a fact that Fujisan can be seen, but this may or may not happen right now."

Just rehashing the same thing--can't express it right! :relief:

[Glenn]

In searching the Web for good information about this (and pretty much failing), I found an interesting-looking Japanese paper (http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:62UBBuam7RAJ:www.bunka.or.kr/ronbun/no10/yamauchi.hwp+mieru+mirareru&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12)...

You know what I found interesting about that paper? The author used reformed kana orthography and traditional kanji. Pretty cool. :-)

[J44xm]

Thank you, everyone, for the great information. I think I've finally been able to sort this out pretty well.　ありがとうございました！

Of course, now I'm kind of wondering about the "reformed kana orthography and traditional kanji" comment a bit ...

[Glenn]

Here's a sample:

3. 典型的な自發

本節においては、圖１における！の領域、つまり、「可 能」とはまったく關係がなく、「見える」しか使用する ことができない、典型的な「自發」のケースについて檢討する。

(7) ママ、見て。お星樣が(○見え／×見られ)るよ。

(8) お母さんの髮に白いものが(○見え／×見られ)る。

(9) どんどん步いていくと、目の前に大きな瀧が(○見え／× 見られ)てきた。

(10) ひざが(○見え／×見られ)るような短いスカートは禁止です。

發 was simplified to 発
圖 " " " 図
關 " " " 関
檢 " " "検
樣 " " " 様
步 -> this is an interesting example of a stroke being added to a character; it became 歩
瀧 was simplified to 滝

However, you don't see まつたく for まったく or やう for よう, etc.

[J44xm]

Ahh. Thank you for the explanation, Glenn.