skip to Main Content

DigMandarin Community Forums what’s the difference between 由 and 被?

Viewing 1 reply thread
  • Author
    Posts
    • #208
      ChatelleS
      Participant
    • #218
      CaoJing
      Participant

      由 is used to emphasize the people who should be responsible for something and purposiveness is very strong.

      被 is used to emphasize to what results some actions done by somebody lead and purposiveness is not strong.

       

      a. 水果由我来买。

      b. 由我来买水果。

      c. 杯子被他打碎了。

      d. 自行车被人偷走了。

       

      Sentence a&b mainly indicate it’s “ 我” that is responsible for buying the fruits instead any other people. The person who should do this job is arranged on purpose so the purposiveness is very strong.

       

      Sentence c mainly tells the glasses was broken and sentence d tells the bicycle was stolen. The result is broken and stolen. As for who broke the glasses and who stole the bicycle is not important. 

Viewing 1 reply thread
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Back To Top