Active and Passive Voice:
When writing sentences, we often choose between two different structures: active voice and passive voice. Understanding these two can help us communicate more clearly and effectively. Let’s break them down into easy-to-understand steps.
I swim in the ocean. –
I is the subject
swim is the verb
ocean is the object.
My mom plays violin. –
My mom is the subject,
plays is the verb,
violin is the object.
Active voice: When a subject is directly acting on the object, the sentence is written in Active voice.
Passive voice: When the object is acted upon by the subject, the sentence is written in Passive voice.
In both the above sentences, the meaning remains the same and only the structure is what that changes. Usually, the structure or sequence of the subject, verb, and object expressed in the active voice sentence gets reversed in the passive voice of the same sentence. To understand the difference, just focus on how the subject and object change the structure of the sentences in the table below:
Active Voice Passive Voice
Active:-I ate an apple
Passive:-An apple was eaten by me
Now you must have gotten some idea of how the active and passive voice sentences look like. From one voice to another voice is really simple when you know a few rules that we will chalk out for you here:
Structure of Active and Passive voice:
Active voice: Subject + Verb + Object
Passive voice: Object + Verb + Subject
1. Switch the subject and object: The subject of the active sentence becomes the object in the passive sentence, and the object becomes the subject.
Active voice: She bought a new car. (She is the subject and a new car is an object.)
Passive voice: A new car was bought by her. (A new car is a subject and her is the object.)
2. Change the verb to its past participle form: In passive voice, the main verb is always in its third form (past participle).
First form Second form Third form
Buy Bought Bought
Sing sang sung
Grow. grew grown
Active voice: Bhaanu wrote a book on gun violence.
Passive voice: A book on gun violence was written by Bhaanu.
3. Use the word “by” before the subject in the passive sentence. For example:
Active voice: My brother sang a song.
Passive voice: A song was sung by my brother.
4. Change of tense of the auxiliary word: Now when you change the verb form of the main verb, the tense of the auxiliary also changes accordingly. Let’s see this with the help of a few examples:
Present tense–
Active voice: I drinks a water.
Passive voice: A water is drank by me.
Past tense–
Active voice: She walked my dog home.
Passive voice: My dog was walked home by her.
Future tense–
Active voice: Sheena will do the craft work.
Passive voice: Craft work will be done by Sheena.
5. Sometimes you may completely omit the subject from the passive voice if the idea you are trying to convey is clear. You just have to take a judgement call for that. For example:
Active voice: Distance is measured in kilometers.
Passive voice: Kilometres is a measurement unit for distance.
6. Words like “with” or “to” are also used in passive voice. You may recall that we use “by” quite frequently in an active voice to passive voice conversion.
Active voice: I know her.
Passive voice: She is known to me.
Active voice: Love fills my heart.
Passive voice: My heart is filled with love.
7.Use a word "being" while converting continue tense sentence into passive.
Active voice: I am giving a pen.
Passive voice: A pen is being given by me.
8.Use a words "been" while converting perfect tense sentence into passive.
Active voice:I have helped his father
Passive voice: His father have been helped by me.
8. Change pronouns as needed:Pronouns also change when converting from active to passive
I- me
We-use
He- him
She- her
They-them
Example of all tenses
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