Passive Voice

Passive voice

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what is the passive voice?

Generally, in our day-to-day language we use the active voice a lot, in which the subject is the one who performs the action. However, very often we also use the passive voice without realizing it, when the subject remains passive and emphasis is placed on the person or object that experiences or receives the action.

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Passive voice

structure

In English, the passive voice is made up of two main elements: the corresponding form of the verb 'to be' followed by the past participle. Switching to the passive voice in English will make your texts more formal. Instead, if you use the active voice, your writings or speeches will be easier to understand. The structure of the passive voice is as follows:

Example

Passive voice

How to switch from active to passive in English

How can you change a sentence from active voice to passive voice in English? What you should do is use the appropriate form of the verb to be + the past participle of the verb that you have in the active voice sentence. Look first at the following table:

iNFO

TABLE

PASSIVE VOICE

Test

Complete the following sentences in the passive voice with the verbs in parentheses:

América (to discover)___ __________ by Christopher Columbus in 1492.

English (to speak) ___ _______ in many countries all over the world.

The wheel (to invent) _____ ________thousands of years ago.

PASSIVE VOICE

Test

Change the following active sentences to their passive form.

We are going to announce the results on Monday.

The students are making arrangements for the party.

A gardener is watering the flowers.

What is the past participle?

The past participle is what in Spanish we call the conjugated verb in the preterite. All the compound forms of the verb tenses in English are formed with an auxiliary verb plus the past participle. Therefore, you have to know the past participle of all verbs. Regular verbs are formed with '-ed' at the end, for irregular ones you have to memorize the list of verbs in the past participle.

REMOVE THE SUBJECT OF THE SENTENCE

The agent complement (what follows the preposition by) is usually omitted when:

1. There is a personal pronoun as a subject Active: He cut my hair. (He cut my hair). Passive: My hair was cut by him (They cut my hair). 2. When the subject is someone or people: Active: Someone delivered a packet to me. (Someone handed me a package). Passive: A packet was delivered to me. (A package has been delivered to me.)

Object pronouns

Object pronouns are those pronouns that receive the action in a sentence. They are me, you, him, her, us, them, and whom. Any noun receiving an action in the sentence, like these pronouns, is an object and is categorized as objective case.*

Here is a summary of the changes that have occurred:

• The object of the active voice becomes the subject of the passive voice.
• The subject of the active voice becomes the object of the passive voice and is accompanied by an agent complement, the preposition by.
• The most important change occurs when we want to transform the verb to the passive voice.
• The main verb of the active voice becomes a past participle preceded by the verb to be:

The tourists took the pictures. (Tourists took the photos.) The pictures were taken by the tourists. (The photos have been taken by tourists.)

Use of the verb to be

The verb to be will always adopt the same tense as the main verb in the active sentence.

Active VoicePicasso painted more than 13,500 paintings. Passive Voice More than 13,500 paintings were painted by Picasso.