Back to: Active-Passive Voices
Passive voice is the opposite of Active Voice. Passive voice is more complex and unclear. The use of Passive voice is not as common as Active voice. In Passive voice Subject is not given importance. Rather action is more important. In this kind of voice the verb precedes the subject, and the main subject of a sentence follows the verb.
To put it clearly, Active voice tells us what the subject does whereas Passive voice tells what happens to the subject.
The act of converting Active voice to passive voice is known as Voice change in English grammar. Basic structure of Passive voice –
Object + Verb + Subject
e.g.
- Active Voice: Nandita will recite a poem.
- Passive Voice: A poem will be recited by Nandita.
‘Nandita’ subject of the sentence goes after the main verb ‘recite’ in passive voice. ‘A poetry’ the object of the sentence is put first.
Examples
In the next examples notice the change of place of subject and object carefully.
| Active Voice | Passive Voice |
|---|---|
| Rahul is playing football. | Football is being played by Rahul. |
| Kakli wrote a short story. | A short story was written by Kakli. |
| Rupa has given me a present. | A present has been given to me by Rupa. |
| God created the earth. | The earth was created by God. |
| I scolded him. | He was scolded by me. |
| The cat stole a piece of fish. | A piece of fish was stolen by the cat. |
| Mother brought a stray dog home. | A stray dog was brought to home by mother. |
