PASSIVE & ACTIVE VOICE

Lesson 2

Passive & Active voices

Learn how to use passive and active voice in English

Passive and Active voice

Passive voice

Forming passive voice

Active voice

Using passive voice

Active voice

Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. It is used to describe what the subject is doing. Sentences in the active voice have a strong, direct, and clear tone. EX : Monkeys adore bananas.

Verb

Object

Subject

Passive voice

The passive voice is when we want to give more importance to the action. It is always constructed with a conjugated form of to be plus the verb’s past participle. EX : Bananas are loved by monkeys

Preposition

Subject

To be + past participle

Object

Forming passive voice

TO FORM PASSIVE VOICE YOU NEED SUJET + BE + Participe passé

Using passive voice

In which case do I have to use passive voice ?

• When you don't know who realised the action EX : My phone has been stolen
• When you want to give importance to the action or the object EX : The car was driven by him yesterday.
• Passive voice very often use the preposition "by".
• You can also use passive voice to talk about the most important subject of the sentence EX : The vegetables are all grown by local farmers.
• With the "BE+ING" form, passive voice is constructed like this : "Being + P.Participle" EX : I hate being talked to at the library.