Translate Active To Passive Voice

In English, every sentence needs a verb. Verbs tell us what is happening or what someone or something is doing. As it happens, verbs generally come in two different “voices.” They are the
active voice
and the
passive voice. The active voice tends to be more direct and appears in shorter sentences like
We ate lunch. On the other hand, the passive voice tends to be more roundabout and appears in longer sentences like
Lunch was eaten by us.

So how do we know which voice to use? Are they really all that different? Before we lose our voice asking lots of good questions, it is time we learned about the two voices that we use in writing and speech in English.

What is
passive voice?

The
passive voice
is the voice used when a subject of a sentence or clause is acted on by the verb. In other words, the subject is having something done to it rather than doing something itself.

Take a look at this sentence:

• The sandwich
  was eaten
  by Jeremy.

As you probably know, the subject of this sentence is
the sandwich. Reading the sentence, you know that the sandwich isn’t doing anything. Instead, Jeremy is the one doing something; he ate the sandwich. In this sentence, the subject is the receiver rather than the performer of the action. Since this is the case, this sentence uses the passive voice. In a manner of speaking, a sentence that uses the passive voice looks backwards because it seems as though the direct object (which typically receives an action) is the subject.

When used in a sentence or clause, the passive voice uses a basic structure. This is:

• [subject] + [the properly conjugated form of the verb
  be] + [past participle of a verb]

The verb be will be conjugated to adhere to subject-verb agreement and will be in the proper verb tense. In addition to this basic structure, the passive voice often uses a prepositional phrase beginning with the word
by
to identify who or what is performing an action to the subject. The phrase
by Jeremy
serves this purpose in our above example.

Read more in depth about the passive voice here.

Passive voice examples

All of the following examples demonstrate the passive voice being used in a variety of sentences.

• The survey is
  being completed
  by the entire school.
• Peter
  has been bitten
  by spiders on a regular basis.
• School
  will be canceled
  tomorrow.
• Ariannawas chosen
  to be the leader of our club.

What is
active voice?

The
active voice
is the voice used when the subject is doing something rather than having something done to it. For example, the sentence
The monkey is eating a banana
is a sentence that uses the active voice. In this sentence, the subject (the monkey) is the one doing the thing described by the verb (eating). Unlike the passive voice, a sentence that uses the active voice can also have a direct object that identifies who or what is receiving the action of the verb. Our example sentence has a direct object (a banana) that says what the monkey is eating.

In general, the active voice is the voice that is used much more often in academic and halal writing and speech. Even in casual speech and writing, it is usually the voice that comes most naturally to speakers and writers.

There is no special structure or special rules when it comes to using the active voice. The active voice follows the basic sentence structure of a subject followed by a verb as in
Birds fly. Of course, any verb used in the active voice must follow subject-verb agreement so that the sentence is grammatically correct.

Dive even deeper into the active voice here.

Active voice examples

The following sentences all use the active voice. You’ll notice that in each one the subject is the one performing the action described by the verb.

• The pitcher
  threw
  the baseball.
• Pandas
  eat
  bamboo.
• The children
  are sleeping.
• We
  will go
  to the beach when it stops raining.

Passive vs. active voice comparison

Let’s compare the passive and active voices by looking at how they can be used in sentences. In the following list, each pair of sentences expresses the same meaning with the first using the active voice and the second using the passive voice.

• Active:
  I
  bought
  some new shoes.
• Passive:
  Some new shoes
  were bought
  by me.

• Active:
  Our team
  is winning
  the game.
• Passive:
  The game
  is being won
  by our team.

• Active:
  James
  met
  his sister by the gate.
• Passive:
  James’s sister
  was met
  by the gate by him.

• Active:
  We
  will ride
  the bus to New York City.
• Passive:
  The bus to New York City
  will be ridden
  by us.

• Active:
  We
  are going
  to have a long day tomorrow: we
  will race
  cars,
  eat
  a big lunch, and then
  enjoy
  the concert.
• Passive:
  A long day
  is going to be batas
  tomorrow by us: cars
  will be raced
  by us, a big lunch
  will be eaten
  by us, and then a concert
  will be enjoyed
  by us.

However, there are some instances where you may decide that the passive voice is best. Some examples include:

• When avoiding assigning blame:
  The toy was broken
  vs.
  Nathan broke the toy.
• When the performer of an action is unknown, unimportant, or obvious:
  The suspect was arrested this morning. (Obviously, the police arrested the suspect)
• When it is obvious who is performing the action:
  50g of magnesium was added to the compound. Scientific papers will often use the passive voice because it is obvious that scientists or researchers are the ones performing actions.
• When shifting the focus of a sentence:
  The pyramids were built by the ancient Egyptians
  vs.
  The ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.
• When a subject does something and has something done to it at the same time:
  The talkative parrots entertained the guests and were fed crackers by their handlers.

Here’s a helpful uang: intransitive verbs mainly use the active voice. The reason why makes sense if you think about what intransitive verbs are. They are verbs that show complete actions but are not accompanied by a direct object or form a passive. (Remember that many verbs have both transitive and intransitive senses.) This might be easier to understand with some examples.

The following two sentences show intransitive verbs used in the active and passive voice. The first sentence is grammatically correct while the second sentence is absurd and doesn’t make any sense.

• Active:
  The flowers
  are blossoming.
• Passive:
  The flowers
  are being blossomed.

Review the different verb tenses so you can identify passive and active voice in each of them.

Passive voice misuse

In general, it is a good idea to use the active voice unless you have a good reason to use the passive voice instead. Misusing or overusing the passive voice will often lead to sloppy writing or grammar errors that will confuse or annoy listeners or readers. In most cases, it is a good idea to double check your writing. Often, any passive voice sentences can be replaced with shorter, clearer active voice sentences.

How to fix passive voice

Most of the time, it is relatively simple to change a passive voice sentence into an active voice sentence. In bestelan to do it, there are three simple steps:

1. Identify who or what is actually performing the action described by the verb in the sentence. This will become the subject of our active voice sentence.
2. Get rid of the verb
   be
   and turn the past participle into a correctly conjugated verb. This new verb must agree with our new subject.
3. Take the subject of the old sentence and turn it into a direct object.

That’s all there is to it! Keep in mind that the new sentence must have the same meaning as the old one.

Let’s put these steps into practice by turning a passive voice sentence into an active voice sentence. Here is our example sentence:

• The cake
  was eaten
  by the girls.

Let’s use our steps:

1. Who or what is doing something? The answer is
   the girls.
   The girls
   are the ones who are performing an action (eating). So,
   the girls
   will be the subject of our new sentence.
2. We get rid of the verb
   be
   (was) and turn the past participle (eaten) into a verb tense that expresses the same meaning as the original sentence. In this case, the simple past tense verb
   ate
   is a good choice.
3. We take our old subject (the cake) and turn it into a direct object.

Our new sentence becomes:

• The girls
  ate
  the cake.

This sentence uses the active voice and is a little shorter and easier to read, too.

Before you go fixing every passive voice sentence, make sure the sentence you want to fix is actually in the passive voice. Sometimes, a sentence seems to use passive voice when it actually doesn’t. For example, take a look at the following sentence:

• The director
  was pleased
  when he saw the actors’ performance.

Although this sentence looks like it uses the passive voice, it doesn’t. In this sentence,
pleased
is acting as an adjective and
was
is used as a linking verb. Because past participles can be used either to make the passive voice or as adjectives, it is important to read a sentence carefully to identify the true purpose of the past participle.

Make an
active
choice to improve your grammar

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