NOTES ON THE PASSIVE VOICE

Passive voice

Use of Passive

Passive voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not known, who or what is performing the action.

Example: My bike was stolen.

Who stole it?

Form of Passive

Subject + verb to be + Past Participle (3rd column of irregular verbs / verb ending -ed)

Example: A letter was written (irregular)

A football game is being played (regular)

Active to Passive

When rewriting active sentences in passive voice, note the following steps:

1^st step: the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence

2^nd step: verb to be takes the tense of the verb in the active sentence.

3^rd step: write the past participle of the verb in the active sentence.

4^th step: the subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped) introduced by _____

	Active	Passive
1st step	Object	Subject
2nd step	Verb tense =	Tense of the verb to be
3rd step	Verb =	Past participle
4th step	subject	by …

Example: Tom has made a cake (active)

A cake has been made by Tom (Passive)

Passive Sentences with Two Objects

Rewriting an active sentence with two objects in passive voice means that one of the two objects becomes the subject, the other one remains an object.

	Subject	Verb	Object 1	Object 2
Active:	Rita	wrote	a letter	to me.
Passive:	A letter	was written	to me	by Rita.
Passive:	I	was written	a letter	by Rita.

IMPERSONAL AND PERSONAL PASSIVE

Sometimes when you are reporting what people say or believe, you don´t know, or you don´t want to say, who exactly the `people´ are. So you use an impersonal construction:

People believe that thousands of birds died.

The same idea can be expressed by using the passive in two different ways:

a) subject + passive of reporting verb + `to´ infinitive (PERSONAL PASSIVE)

Hundreds of thousands of birds are believed to have died.

b) It + passive of reporting verb + that + clause (IMPERSONAL PASSIVE)

It is believed that hundreds of thousands of birds died.

VERB CHANGES IN PERSONAL PASSIVE

PRESENT / SIMPLE FUTURE: live / will live __ to live (to infinitive)
PRESENT CONTINUOUS: is living __ to be living (to be + V-ing)
PRESENT PERFECT: have lived __ to have lived (to have + pp)
PAST SIMPLE / PAST PERFECT: lived __ to have lived / had lived __ to have lived (to have + pp)
PAST CONTINUOUS:  was living __ to have been living (to have been + V-ing)

THE CAUSATIVE FORM: have/get + object +past participle

Instead of a passive sentence, we sometimes use the causative form when you get somebody else to do something for you.

     

• She's having her house redecorated.
• I had a copy of the report sent to you

In informal English, we can replace 'have' by 'get'.

• They will be getting the system repaired.
• I got the bill sent direct to the company.