The Passive Voice

The passive voice is less usual than the active voice. The structure of the passive voice is very simple.

Формула формирования страдательного залога

We can form the passive in any tense. In fact, conjugation of verbs in the passive tense is rather easy, as the main verb is always in past participle form and the auxiliary verb is always be. To form the required tense, we conjugate the auxiliary verb.

simple	present	It is cleaned.
	past	It was cleaned.
	future	It will be cleaned.
continuous	present	It is being cleaned.
continuous	past	It was being cleaned.
perfect simple	present	It has been cleaned.
perfect simple	past	It had been cleaned.

The main verb is always in its past participle form. We form questions by putting the verb to be before the subject. We form negations with the word not.

The building was constructed in the previous century.
Is your house being redecorated?
The new furniture hasn’t been delivered yet.

Infinitives

We form the passive of infinitives like these:

Формирование Present infinitive.

Формирование Perfect infinitive в действительном и страдательном залоге.

She wants to be admired.

Modal verbs and infinitives

We form the passive of modal verbs like this.

modal verb + be + past participle

The bills must be paid.

Use of the Passive Voice

We use the passive when:

we want to make the active object more important
we do not know the active subject
the active subject is unimportant
the active subject is obvious from the context

	subject	verb	object
give importance to active object (President Kennedy)	President Kennedy	was killed	by Lee Harvey Oswald.
active subject is unknown	My car	has been stolen.	–
active subject is unimportant	Whisky	is made in Scotland.	–
active subject is obvious from the context	The bank robbers	are being questioned.	–

Note that we always use by to introduce the passive object.

Australia was discovered by Captain Cook.

However, there are cases when we do not talk about the “agent” or “doer”, but about the instrument used. In this case we use with.

He was killed with a gun. – Normally we use by to introduce the passive object. But the gun is not the active subject. The gun did not kill him. He was killed by somebody with a gun. In the active voice, it would be: Somebody killed him with a gun.

Turning the active into the passive

To turn a sentence from the active into the passive:

The object of the active sentence becomes the subject in the passive sentence.
The active verb changes into a passive form.
The subject of the active sentence becomes the agent.

	subject	verb	object
ACTIVE	Jane	paid	the bills.

	subject	verb	object
PASSIVE	The bills	were paid	by Jane.

Examples

Study the following table:

	active	passive
present simple	She makes copies.	Copies are made.
present continuous	She is making copies.	Copies are being made.
past simple	She made copies.	Copies were made.
past continuous	She was making copies.	Copies were being made.
present perfect simple	She has made copies.	Copies have been made.
past perfect simple	She had made copies.	Copies had been made.
future simple	She will make copies.	Copies will be made.
infinitive	She has to make copies.	Copies have to be made.
modals	She can make copies.	Copies can be made.

Only the verbs that take an object can be turned into the passive.

The chambermaid makes the beds.
The beds are made by the chambermaid.

It is raining heavily. – The sentence can’t be turned into the passive because the verb does not take an object.

Somebody

When the subject of the active sentence is one of the following words: people, one, someone / somebody, they, he, etc., the agent is often omitted in the passive sentence.

People speak English all over the world. → English is spoken all over the world.
Someone stole my purse. → My purse was stolen.

Object pronouns

Object pronouns (me, you, them, etc.) become subject pronouns (I, you, they, etc.) in the passive.

They told me the truth about the accident. → I was told the truth about the accident.

When the verb of the active sentence is followed by a preposition, the preposition is kept in the passive sentence as well.

She took care of the children while their mother was away. → The children were taken care of while their mother was away.

Who / What … by?

When we want to find out who or what did something, then the passive is formed as follows: Who / What … by?

Who was Australia discovered by? – Australia was discovered by Captain Cook.

What was he bitten by? – He was bitten by a dog.

Verbs

With verbs that take two objects, such as ask, bring, tell, send, show, teach, promise, offer, give, pay, lend, etc., we can form the passive in two ways.

The company offered Michael a job.
Michael was offered a job.
A job was offered to Michael.

They paid us £3000.
We were paid £3000.
£3000 was paid to us.