Difference between intransitive and passive?

Question

I was thinking about Japanese passive and made the following example 壊すー>壊される which means to be broken But looking at the English definition of "to be broken", isn't there another Japanese word for that being, 壊れる？ How are these two different in meaning and use, and are the differences the same in all verbs that can act like that, e.g 汚される and 汚れる？ Thanks!

Answer 1

The transitive verb takes WO and some outside force acts upon an object.

The passive form, in the case of KOWASARERU, means we're looking at the object as a victim, it is receiving the action.

In intransitive verbs, the object acts upon itself or does the action itself. In some cases, like with KOWARERU, the object/subject may have been the "victim" of an outside force or it acted upon itself. We may not know or care.