The Passive Voice
Lesson Contents
- What is the Passive Voice?
- How is the passive voice formed?
- Conjugating the passive voice
- Reference examples of passive forms.
- When is the passive voice used?
- Advanced Passive forms / impersonal passive forms.
- Classroom Grammar Presentations.
- Passive Voice Grammar Exercises
Exercises
- The Passive Voice Basics Exercise
- Advanced Forms of the Passive Voice Multiple Choice Exercise.
- The Passive Voice Transformations Exercise.
What is the Passive Voice?
The passive voice is simply a form where we emphasise the object of a sentence and what is done to the object, rather than who or what is doing it.
Compare:
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
Active sentence
Hamlet was written by Shakespeare.
Passive sentence
How is the passive voice formed?
To make a passive sentence we need:
The verb “To Be” & The past participle of the verb.
It is formed like this:
To be + Past Participle.
For example:
“Hamlet was written by Shakespeare.”
Conjugating the passive voice
Don’t forget that the only part of the passive construct that conjugates is the verb “To Be.”
The past participle always remains the same.
Tense is expressed by the form of the verb to be, for example:
It will be finished
(future with will)
It was finished
(past simple)
It has been finished
(present perfect)
Reference examples of passive forms.
| It was done. | Past simple |
| It has been done. | Present perfect |
| It had been done. | Past perfect |
| It is being done. | Present continuous |
| It is done. | Present simple |
| It will be done. | Future (will) |
| It is going to be done. | Future (going to) |
| It will be being done | Future continuous |
| It will have been done. | Future perfect |
| It should be being done. | After a modal verb |
| It should have been done. | In the past after a modal verb |
| It would be done. | In conditional |
| I don’t like it being done. | When we need a gerund |
| He was happy to be invited | When we need an infinitive |
When is the passive voice used?
The passive voice is:
- More impersonal.
- More formal.
- More ambiguous.
It is often used:
It is commonly used when:
- We don’t know who did something / who did something is not important.
- To express general rules.
- in academic, scientific, news and formal media / communication.
The liquid was boiled and the resulting vapours were collected and analysed.
News Media:
The Prime minister is expected to make an announcement today.
Press / Media
It is requested that you make an appointment at the earliest opportunity.
Formal Communication.
My bicycle was stolen!
The man was arrested.
Irrelevant / unknown agent:
In these examples, if we want to say who did the action we would use “by”:
- My bicycle was stolen by thieves.
- The man was arrested by the police.
- A note about Use in English.
The passive voice is used much more in English than in other languages
The primary reason for this is that it is a common impersonal form.
In English might say:
“Smoking is prohibited.”
Advanced Passive forms / impersonal passive forms.
There are two further forms that are commonly used in the passive voice. Instead of saying
“People believe that he escaped at night.”
We could say either;
“It is believed that he escaped at night.” or
“He is believed to have escaped at night.”
Which are both forms that we will look at in detail in the next presentation. They often don’t translate very well into other languages.
Classroom Grammar Presentations
Exercises
Read the grammar topic about the passive voice. When you are satisfied that you understand, try the quizzes.
Each quiz contains the slides from the video presentation for reference.