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The verb 見える (mieru) appears to be able to conjugate to 見えられる (mierareru) (potential form).

If it is so, what is the meaning of mierareru and how is it different from mieru?

To my knowledge mieru = "can see". So what would the potential form mierareru mean then?

Eddie Kal
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Krauss
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    Sorry. The original question wasn't particularly clear. It now seems that you're not asking about the two forms [見える and 見られる](http://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5287/542). But you're asking if 見える itself can conjugate to a potential form 見えられる and what it means if it's a valid conjugation. – Flaw Feb 26 '17 at 13:02
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    I edited the question to include the question in the main body. If you feel the intent of the question is lost, please rollback the edit or edit accordingly. – Flaw Feb 26 '17 at 13:04

2 Answers2

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見える is already a potential form of 見る, so 見えられる doesn't make sense.

見られる is a potential, passive, respect, spontaneous form of 見る.

And 見える is a respect form of 来る. Some people may use 見えられる for this meaning but this is grammatically incorrect because it is redundant keigo.

The other usages of 見える. http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/210883/meaning/m0u/%E8%A6%8B%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B/

Eddie Kal
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Yuuichi Tam
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  • Thanks for the answers. Well I got the "Mierareru" as potential form of "Mieru" from http://www.japaneseverbconjugator.com/VerbDetails.asp?txtVerb=%E8%A6%8B%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B – Krauss Feb 26 '17 at 15:04
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    @Krauss It says "The conjugations and English meanings are automatically generated and not all forms are always relevant for all verbs." on the top of the page. – broccoli facemask Feb 26 '17 at 15:15
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The most literal translation of 見える is "to be visible". As this is a verb, you can theoretically put -られる to it, and られる has four interpretations: potential, passive, respectful, and spontaneous.

  • potential: "be able to be visible" (?)
  • passive: "be been visible" (???)

If you find any situation these forms are usable, then they are.

  • respectful: 見える is not a intentional action, so honorific form using -られる is inapplicable. But as 見える itself can be used as a respectful form of 来る, some people use 見えられる by analogy with 来られる. However, the usage is considered incorrect since 見える as honorific is already equivalent to 来られる.

  • spontaneous: not applicable outside verbs of thinking.

broccoli facemask
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  • be been visible って？ – Chocolate Feb 27 '17 at 05:36
  • @Shoko さあ…これくらい文法的には変っていう例です（アスタリスクとかつければ良かったかも？） – broccoli facemask Feb 27 '17 at 08:01
  • @Shoko さん、be been visibleっていうのはないんです英語で！Also broken headphones I have no idea what that's supposed to mean in English, maybe there's a way to get around having to write it if we don't have an equivalent.... /swt – virgil9306 Feb 27 '17 at 10:51
  • @virgil9306 Thank you I meant that the Japanese word form makes no more sense than it but being intransitive verb doesn't immediately prevent becoming passive in Japanese (of course it yields nonsense). – broccoli facemask Feb 27 '17 at 11:42
  • Makes sense now. I see it now. I be been seeing it now. – virgil9306 Feb 28 '17 at 02:26