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Passive voice

passive voice

What is the passive voice in English?

A sentence or question is in the passive voice when the subject of the sentence or question has the action done to it, rather than the subject performing the action. Important to note, the active voice is used more commonly in English instead of the passive, nonetheless, the passive is used much more frequently in English than in other languages such as Spanish.

Why is the passive voice used? 

There are a variety of reasons why the passive is used in English, however, fundamentally, the passive is used to express or focus on the action or experience rather than the agent – the person or thing that performs the action. I.e., 

  • The room was cleaned by Ben

So, in the above sentence, the action is “room was cleaned”, while the agent (the person or thing that performs the action) is “Ben”, which in turn, does not coincide with the subject, “room”.

That’s why this sentence is a passive structure and not an active structure. 

Moreover, the above sentence “the room was cleaned by Ben” is using the correct construction for the past simple in the passive (was/were + past participle).

Further, all verbal forms such as the present simple, and present perfect have a passive equivalent (and different construction, naturally): 

Verbal tenseActive voicePassive voice
Present simpleI know him. He is known
Present continuousHarry is visiting us. We are being visited by Harry. 
Present perfectShe has bought a new car. A new car has been bought by her. 

These are just a few examples. You can see all available constructions for all passive constructions in the links above. Moreover, in our index Active Voice, all available constructions and rules for the active verbal forms in English are given.

verbos en ingles

Indicating the agent in the passive

The preposition “by” is used for indicating the agent in the passive voice in English, however, should you use it? For example, 

  • He was spoken to yesterday. 

Vs. 

  • He was spoken to by us yesterday. 

So, it’s up to you whether you insert the agent, in this case, “us” or not. 

Perhaps you want to be somewhat ambiguous as to “who” or “what” performed the action, whereby you could feel free to omit the agent.