PASSIVE voice

Form & Use

We form the passive voice with the verb to be + past participle. The tense of the verb to be changes as it would in the active sentence.

Active --> Passive

Present simple: take / takes --> am / is / are taken

Present continuous: am / is / are taking --> am / is / are being taken

Present perfect: has / have taken --> has / have been taken

Past simple: took --> was / were taken

Past perfect simple: had taken --> had been taken

will: will take --> will be taken

be going to: is / are going to take --> is / are going to be taken

Modal verbs: can / must / should take --> can / must / should be taken

Some verbs don’t have a passive form. This includes intransitive verbs (which don’t take an object) such as die, sleep and swim.

USE

The active voice describes what someone or something does. The passive voice describes what happens to something or someone. Compare:

I threw away my old mobile phone last week. (Active – it is important to say who threw it away.)

Thousands of old mobile phones are thrown away every week. (Passive – it is important what is thrown away (mobile phones) rather than who does the throwing away.)

The passive with by

We can use by to say who or what did the action of a passive sentence if it gives important information.

Las Meninas was painted by Velázquez.

We can omit by + agent from a passive sentence:

• When the agent is unknown: My pen has been stolen. (I don’t know who stole it.)

• When the agent is very obvious / not important: Taxes have been raised again. (The agent – the government – is obvious.)

ACTIVE–PASSIVE TRANSFORMATIONS

1 - We can use these steps to change an active sentence into a passive sentence.

Active: They have discovered a vaccine.

• Identify the object of the active sentence and put it at the beginning of the passive sentence as its subject: A vaccine

• Identify the tense used in the active sentence. Use this tense of the word be with past participle of the main verb: have discovered = present perfect (active) --> A vaccine has been discovered

• Decide whether or not you need to use by. --> A vaccine has been discovered. (NOT A vaccine has been discovered by them.)

2 To transform a passive sentence into the active, we can follow the steps above in reverse. You may need to invent a subject if one isn’t given. To do this, ask yourself who could be responsible for the action.

Passive: They were being followed.

Active: Someone was following them.

IMPERSONAL PASSIVE

1 We form the impersonal passive with it + be + past participle.

Subject + be + past participle

It + (is / was / has been) + thought

They + (are / were / have been) + thought

2 The impersonal passive shows general or expert opinion. We use it in formal language with verbs that show ‘knowing’ and ‘thinking’.

It is believed that prices will go down.

They have been known to tell lies to the public.

Page updated

Report abuse