Today, let’s look at something very scary. It’s called ‘passive voice’.

Before we look at it, let’s consider three ideas

1)  If you can understand active sentences, you can understand passive sentences. I promise.

2)  In the beginning, it is more important to be able to recognize and understand passive voice than it is to be able to write with passive voice

This is because:

3)  We only use passive voice when we NEED passive voice

And in the beginning, you should focus on using active voice, as active voice is more common.

Let’s have a look!

What is passive voice?

Passive voice is when the subject of a sentence receives the action.

Example:                    
The bank was robbed.

Subject: bank

Verb: rob

The bank didn’t rob someone. (in this sentence)

Someone robbed the bank.

Why do we use passive voice?

We use passive voice when:

We don’t know who the original subject is

Example:  The bank was robbed yesterday.

(we don’t know who robbed the bank yet)

Or

We want to focus on the original object

Example: Hamlet was written by Shakespeare.

(the person is focused on the play Hamlet instead of the author William Shakespeare)

Or

The original subject is obvious or not important

The man was arrested.

(we know that the police arrest people)

How do we form the passive voice?

Here is the good news: forming the passive voice is actually very simple. It’s like a math equation. If you can understand the equation, the you just adapt it for any situation.

We use:

The verb “to be” in the original verb tense

+

The past participle of the main verb

Example 1

Active Voice:

People eat sushi in Japan

Verb: eat

Verb tense: simple present

Passive Voice:

Sushi is eaten in Japan.

is

(“to be” in simple present)

+

eaten

(past participle of “eat”)

Example 2:

Active Voice:

Someone has stolen the Mona Lisa.

Verb= steal

Verb tense= present perfect

Passive Voice:

The Mona Lisa has been stolen.

has been 

(“to be” in present perfect)

+

stolen

(past participle of “steal”)

That’s it. Almost.

There is something important that we will explore in a later post, but here is the short version:

A sentence can only become passive if the verb in the original active sentence has an object.

Example 1:                 
He killed the cockroach.                   
The cockroach was killed.

Object? Yes. (cockroach)
So…(passive voice)

Example 2:                 
The cockroach died                          

Object? No. So…(no passive voice)

This has been an introduction. Later, we will explore more situations with passive voice and look more deeply into some situations where passive voice is not possible. For a review of this grammar check out this post that has a grammar quiz!

Try to recognize this grammar topic in your reading practice!