Topic #2

Active – passive voice

A sentence is a group of words that express a complete thought. In English, a simple
sentence is made up of a subject + a verb + possibly an object. This sentence structure
is sometimes represented as SVO.
Example: Mario obtained his degree.
Subject verb object
Difference between active and passive voice.
In the active voice, the subject is performing an action: The dog chases the ball.
Notice how the subject, dog, is performing the action, chase, on the target of the
action, ball. This is a simple, direct example of the active voice.
In the passive voice, the action’s target, ball, is positioned first as the focus of the
sentence. The sentence gets flipped, and the subject is now being acted upon by the
verb. In other words, the subject is passive: The ball is being chased by the dog.
Rules for changing Active voice to Passive voice.
1. Simply exchange the places of the subject and the object. The subject should
become the object and vice-e-versa while changing a sentence from Active to
Passive voice or reverse.
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. Always blindly convert the main verb into its past participle or third form while
converting from active to passive voice. To remind you what the third form of a
verb looks like, let’s look at a few examples:
Active voice: Jane wrote a book on gun violence.
Passive voice: A book on gun violence was written by Jane.

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: Sun rises from the east.
Passive voice: East is where the sun rises from.
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: Kilometers 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.
It´s necessary to highlight that in Active Voice, tenses in English are the key to change it
into Passive Voice, the next chart is a guide for studying and understanding the topic, it
includes tenses, and the examples.
Tenses Active Voice Passive Voice
Simple Present I do my homework My homework is done

Subject –Verb- Complement

Present Continuous I´m doing my homework My homework is being
done
Subject- Verb be- Verb with ing
Past Simple I did my homework My homework was done

Subject- Was/Were-
Complement

Past Continuous I was doing my homework My homework was being

done
Subject-Was/Were-Verb with
ing
Present Perfect I have done my homework My homework has been
done
Subject- Have/Has- Past
Participle
Past Perfect I had done my homework My homework had been
done
Subject-Had –Past Participle
Future Simple I will do my homework My homework will be
done
Subject- Will-Verb base form
Future Be going to I´m going to do my My homework is going to
homework be done
Subject-Be- Going to-Infinitive-
Complement
Modal I must do my homework My homework must be
done
Subject-Modal-Verb
Modal Perfect I should have done my My homework should
homework have been done
Subject-Modal-Have-Past
Participle

Activity #1
Instructions: Once you read the topic, click the next link to solve the practice. You
can use the chart above as a guide.
https://agendaweb.org/exercises/verbs/passive-voice/active-passive-1.htm
Activity #2
Instructions: Create 10 sentences, where you change from active into passive voice and
identify the tense you used.
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.
6.

7.

8.

9.

10.