Active and passive voice in English

This chapter will discuss the active and passive voice in English, these are not tenses. However, the verbs in the passive and active voice can be conjugated to all the tenses, for example present simple or past perfect. Active and passive voice is about the structure of the sentence and differ in who is performing the action in the sentence.

Lesson outline

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1.Recap: Active voice in English
2. Passive voice in English
2.1.Structure of the passive voice
3.How to change the active into passive voice
4.Exercises
4.1.Exercise change active voice to passive voice
4.2.Exercise change passive voice to active voice

1) Recap: Active voice in English

In the active voice, also known as direct voice, a subject performs an action.

Examples:

The girl cooks dinner.
He is writing a book

Structure: Subject + main verb + receiver of action.

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2) Passive voice in English

The passive voice is used to put more stress on the action and not on the persons that perform the actions. The passive voice is mostly used when it is not important who performed the action.

Examples:

The dinner was cooked by the girl.
The book was written by the author.

Structure of the passive voice

The passive voice is formed with the auxiliary verb 'to be' and the past participle of the main verb.

Structure: Subject + verb 'to be' + past participle of the main verb

	Subject	Main verb	Object
Active voice	A car	hit	the dog
Passive voice	The dog	was hit	by a car

The difference between active and passive voice in different tenses is shown in the table below.

Verb tenses	Active voice	Passive voice
Simple Present	Joe writes a letter.	A letter is written by Joe.
Present Continous	My sister is keeping my house tidy.	My house is being kept tidy by my sister.
Simple Past	The government built a school.	A school was built by the government.
Past Continous	The band was singing my favourite song.	My favourite song was being sung by me.
Present Perfect	The earthquake has destroyed the whole city.	The whole city has been destroyed by the earthquake.
Past perfect	Michael had published an article.	An article had been published by Michael.
Simple Future	My mother will keep our dog.	The dog will be kept by my mother.
Conditional Present	If you told me, I would keep your secret.	If you told me, your secret would be kept.
Conditional Past	I would have repaired your bicycle here if you had left it with me.	Your bicycle would have been repaired here if you had left it with me.

How to change the active into passive voice

To transform an active sentence into a passive one, the steps below have to be followed:

The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive one.
The main verb is replaced by the auxiliary verb 'to be'
The subject of the active sentence becomes the agent of the passive. This is the person that does or causes something in the passive sentence.
The agent who performs the action will normally get the proposition 'by' in front.

Active	Explanation	Passive
She wears a blue sweater.	'A blue sweater' becomes the subject of the sentence. 'To be' is added. 'She' becomes the agent. The preposition 'by' is added.	A blue sweater is worn by her.
My father is painting the wall.	'The wall' becomes the subject of the sentence. 'To be' is added. 'My father' becomes the agent. The preposition 'by' is added.	The wall is being painted by my father.
She cooks our dinner.	'Our dinner' becomes the subject of the sentence. 'To be' is added. 'She' becomes the agent. The preposition 'by' is added.	Our dinner is cooked by her.