Active and Passive Voice

 

Hello students, this blog post contains comprehensive overview of English Grammar topic Active & Passive voice. 

What is Active and Passive Voice ?

In English grammar, voice refers to the relationship between the verb and the subject in a sentence—specifically, whether the subject is performing the action or receiving it. Based on this relationship, we classify sentences into two types: Active Voice and Passive Voice.

• In an active voice sentence, the subject performs the action.

• In a passive voice sentence, the subject receives the action.

Simple active sentence can be formed with the help of "Subject + Verb + Object". On the other in passive sentence objects comes in the place of subject and receives the action, and the entire sentence changed according to Tense used in the sentence. 

To understand the difference between active and passive voice, let us see a simple sentence:

Active Voice: Ramesh plays cricket.

In this sentence, the structure follows the typical active voice pattern: Subject + Verb + Object. The subject “Ramesh” is the one performing the action of playing. The verb “plays” is in the simple present tense, and the object “cricket” receives the action. Since the subject is actively doing something, the sentence is in the active voice. Active voice is usually more direct and energetic, which is why it is commonly used in academic and spoken English when the focus is on the doer of the action.

Now, let us convert this into the passive voice:

Passive Voice: Cricket is played by Ramesh.

Here, the focus of the sentence shifts. The object of the active sentence (cricket) now becomes the subject in the passive sentence. The verb changes to a passive form, which is made using the appropriate tense of the verb “to be” followed by the past participle of the main verb (played). In this case, “is played” reflects the simple present tense in the passive form. The original subject (Ramesh) is now mentioned at the end of the sentence, introduced by the word “by.”

Though both forms express the same basic idea, they differ in structure and focus. Active voice emphasizes Who is doing the action (Ramesh), while passive voice emphasizes what is being done or who receives the action (Cricket).

Why is Voice Important?

In academic and formal writing, active voice is generally preferred because it is direct, strong, and clear. However, passive voice is also useful and acceptable in day to day conversation, especially when:

• The doer of the action is unknown or unimportant,

• The focus is on the result or receiver of the action,

• One wishes to sound objective or impersonal,

• Or when the subject remains the same through several sentences.

Some Basic Rules to Keep in Mind 

# There are two types of Verbs: 

Transitive Verbs and Intransitive Verb.

Transitive Verbs are those who needs a 'Direct Object' to complete the meaning of sentence. Without an object, the sentence would feel incomplete or unclear. 

For example, "Teacher Gave Homework"

In this sentence 'gave' is transitive verb and it needs direct object of homework. If this sentence would be like 'Teacher Gave' (What?) . It seems incomplete, so it needs homework as object. We can only change Transitive verbs into passive voice. 

Intransitive verbs are those verbs that does not need a direct object. The action ends with the verb and does not pass on to anything or anyone else. These verbs make complete sense on their own.

Sleep, cry, fly, arrive, run...are the examples of intransitive verbs. Since they do not have object we cannot change an intransitive verb in passive voice. 

# When converting sentences from active voice to passive voice, the roles of the subject and object change  and so does their grammatical case, especially when dealing with pronouns.

In an active voice sentence, the subject performs the action, and the object receives it.

For example: She helped me.

Here, “She” is the subject and “me” is the object. The pronoun “me” is in the objective case because it receives the action of the verb “helped.”

When we change this sentence into passive voice, the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence, and the subject becomes the agent, introduced by the preposition “by.” So it would become "I was helped by her". 

# Sometimes it happens that active sentence has two objects, one is direct and other one is indirect object. In this case you can change it into passive voice with help of either of objects. 

Type of Object	Answers the Question	Example Sentence	Object Identified
Direct Object	What? / Whom?	She painted a picture.	picture (direct object)
Indirect Object	To whom? / For whom?	He gave his friend a book.	friend (indirect), book (direct)

#  Always remember that “Being” is used in continuous tenses. He is repairing the car changed into passive as The car is being repaired. And “Been” is used in perfect tenses. She has completed the project changed into passive as The project has been completed.

# Sometimes it's okay to omit the subject ( by + subject) into passive voice if he doer of the action is unknown, unimportant, or obvious from context. For example: 'They submitted the work.' can be change into passive as 'The was submitted'. Here it is not important to add 'by them'. It can be omitted. 

# When the active sentence uses a modal verb (can, could, may, might, must, should, would, etc.), use below mentioned formula to change it into passive voice. 

"modal + be + past participle"

For example: 'She can write a poem' becomes into passive as ' A poem can be written by her'. 

#Tense Must be Maintained

Tense (Active)	Formula (Passive)
Simple Present	Obj + is/am/are + V3 + By +Sub
Present Continuous	Obj + is/am/are + being + V3 + By + Sub
Present Perfect	Obj + has/have + been + V3 + By + Sub
Simple Past	Obj + was/were + V3 + By + Sub
Past Continuous	Obj + was/were + being + V3 + By + Sub
Past Perfect	Obj + had + been + V3 + by + sub
Simple Future	Obj + will + be + V3 + By + Sub
Future Perfect	Obj + will have + been + V3 + by + sub

# Examples 

Tense	Active Voice	Passive Voice
Simple Present	Ramesh plays cricket.	Cricket is played by Ramesh.
Present Continuous	Ramesh is playing cricket.	Cricket is being played by Ramesh.
Present Perfect	Ramesh has played cricket.	Cricket has been played by Ramesh.
Simple Past	Ramesh played cricket.	Cricket was played by Ramesh.
Past Continuous	Ramesh was playing cricket.	Cricket was being played by Ramesh.
Past Perfect	Ramesh had played cricket.	Cricket had been played by Ramesh.
Simple Future	Ramesh will play cricket.	Cricket will be played by Ramesh.
Future Perfect	Ramesh will have played cricket.	Cricket will have been played by Ramesh.