Confused about low-level explanation for transitive vs intransitive

Japanese Language Kanji
1

I’m somewhat confused by the explanation given for when a verb is transitive or intransitive. The information for 上げる states:

Also keep in mind that this is the transitive version of this verb, meaning you are doing the action of raising something (versus something just raising). One way to guess that this is the transitive version is by looking at the second to last kana. If it’s an え sound, often times it’s the transitive form (though not always, so be careful!).

Whereas in the description for 切れる, the following is stated:

In this case, it’s to be cut, which is different than “to cut” because in this case you’re not doing the cutting action. When a verb ends in an える sound (in this case れる) it’s usually going to be the passive form, which is the verb form where something is happening but you’re not the one causing it. Try to remember this for now, but we’ll continue reinforcing this concept with more verbs in the future.

These descriptions say that having an え kana before a る indicate that it usually is a transitive verb… but also an usually an intransitive verb. Shouldn’t it usually be one instead of both?

What am I missing here?

2

The short version is that their explanation is wrong and confusing. The え sounds on its own doesn’t indicate anything. I’m on my phone so I’m not going to go into detail. If nobody has responded in detail by tomorrow ping me and I’ll give more information.

Also passive ≠ intransitive

3

If you search for this, you will find many threads asking the same question about the same explanations, so that’s the best place to start.

4

That makes sense. I searched and found a decent explanation. Thank you.

5

Ah, my bad, sorry. I had googled looked up the issue on google but didn’t really know what search terms to use and as such didn’t find a lot of information. It didn’t occur to me that the Wanikanki forums would be omitted from the search engine and that a separate search would probably give me my answer.

I tried the search again on this forum and found a decent explanation. Thank you.

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