A sentence is in the passive voice, on the other hand, when the subject is acted on by the verb. The passive voice is always constructed with a conjugated form of to be plus the verb’s past participle. Doing this usually generates a preposition as well.

In Spanish, the passive is formed in exactly the same way, using the verb ser (meaning to be) and a past participle. When you say who the action is or was done by, you use the preposition por (meaning by).

Active and Passive Voice Rules for Present Simple Tense

The active voice describes a sentence where the subject performs the action stated by the verb. With passive voice, the subject is acted upon by the verb. It makes for a murky, roundabout sentence; you can be more straightforward with active voice.

Learn with an example

1. If a sentence is in active voice, the subject performs the action. The dog bit the intruder.
2. If a sentence is in passive voice, the subject receives the action. The intruder was bitten by the dog.
3. In passive voice, the verb phrase includes a form of to be plus a past participle.

To teach active and passive voice, make sure to identify the subject and verb in a sentence, explain the difference between active and passive voice, and rearrange sentences from passive to active using the same verb tense.

The passive voice is often maligned by teachers and professors as a bad writing habit. Or, to put it in the active voice, teachers and professors across the English-speaking world malign the passive voice as a bad writing habit.

Writers need to be intentional about voice in order to ensure clarity. Using active voice often improves clarity, while passive voice can help avoid unnecessary repetition. Active voice can help ensure clarity by making it clear to the reader who is taking action in the sentence.

The passive voice is thus extremely useful in academic writing because it allows writers to highlight the most important participants or events within sentences by placing them at the beginning of the sentence.

Passive voice can help to add more description and help a writer develop the subject more in-depth. In active writing, the action becomes more important than the performer of the action, which is inconsistent with the goal of most academic papers.

The passive voice is used when we want to focus attention on the person or thing affected by the action. Normally, the performer of the action, or the agent, comes first and is made the subject of the verb and then we use the active form of the verb. The other person or thing is made the object of the verb.

In a passive sentence, the person or thing doing the action (the actor) is usually preceded by the word “by.” For example: Anita was driven to the theatre by Carla. Nowadays, black kites are protected by law. The olives are stoned and crushed in this room by my son.

How to form a passive sentence

1. Firstly, you need to make the object (from the active sentence) into the new subject. For example, in “John helped me”, “me” is the object.
2. Then you make the verb passive.
3. Then add the past participle of the verb.
4. If necessary, you can say who did the action.

English has two tenses—past and present—and each tense has four aspects— simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous. That makes a total of eight (two tenses times four aspects) different verb forms in the active voice and eight different verb forms in the passive voice.

Passive voice in Future Continuous Tense Active Voice. Passive Voice. Formula: Subject + will be + present participle + object. Formula: S + will + be + ing + past participle + by object.

The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the action. In other words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the sentence.

The passive forms of a verb are created by combining a form of the “to be verb” with the past participle of the main verb. Other helping verbs are also sometimes present: “The measure could have been killed in committee.” The passive can be used, also, in various tenses.

A verb can have two forms of passive voices when it takes two objects: Indirect and Direct objects. Generally, the indirect object becomes the subject, but we can also use the direct object as the subject. Thus, two passive forms are possible in such a case.

How do we form questions in Passive voice? Questions in Passive are formed with to be and the past participle *.

The question words when, why, where, how or what does not change their position at the beginning of the sentence when the active voice is changed into the passive voice. Note that who changes to by whom and whom into who. What did he say? (

The past simple passive is formed by using ‘was’ or ‘were’ plus the past participle. The passive is used when the person or thing that did the action is unknown, unimportant or not the focus of our interest. We use ‘by’ with the passive if we want to identify who or what did the action. Try again.

To turn it into a passive voice we have to follow the same steps as we followed in case of ‘who’ .

1. As usual, use the object of active as the subject of passive.
2. Use a suitable be verb after the passive subject.
3. Use 3rd form of the main verb after the be-verb.
4. Use by + passive object after the verb.

The general rule for sentences using modals in passive voice is: ‘Object + may, must, can, could, ought to, should + be + past participle of main verb (third form)’ in an affirmative sentence. Passive voice for modals in present and future tenses take this form: ‘modal + be + past participle.

Voice is the term used to describe whether a verb is active or passive. When the subject of the verb is being acted upon (e.g., “The postman was bitten.”), the verb is said to be in the passive voice. So, the voice of a verb tells us whether the subject is acting or being acted upon.