The Passive Voice: Forms, Uses and Examples

In an active sentence the subject does the action: "The chef cooked the meal." In a passive sentence the focus moves to the receiver: "The meal was cooked by the chef."

How to form the passive

The structure is always be + past participle. Only the form of "be" changes with the tense.

Tense	Active	Passive
Present simple	They make cars here.	Cars are made here.
Past simple	Someone stole my bike.	My bike was stolen.
Present perfect	They have finished the work.	The work has been finished.
Future	They will announce the winner.	The winner will be announced.
Modal	You must sign the form.	The form must be signed.
Continuous	They are repairing the road.	The road is being repaired.

When to use the passive

• The doer is unknown or unimportant: "My phone was stolen."
• The result matters more than the doer: "The bridge was built in 1890."
• Formal or scientific style: "The samples were heated to 80 degrees."
• You want to avoid blame: "Mistakes were made."

Adding the agent with "by"

Include by + doer only when the information is useful: "The novel was written by Jane Austen." Omit it when it is obvious or irrelevant.

Verbs with two objects

Verbs such as give, send and show can have two passives: "She gave him a book" becomes "He was given a book" or "A book was given to him." The first, with the person as subject, is more common.

Intransitive verbs have no passive

Only verbs with an object can be made passive. You cannot say "The accident was happened" because "happen" does not take an object.

Common mistakes

• Wrong: "The window broke by the boy." Right: "The window was broken by the boy."
• Wrong: "The letter was wrote yesterday." Right: "The letter was written yesterday."

Always check that you use the past participle (written, taken, done), not the past simple.

Practice

• Active or Passive? quiz — Does the subject do the action or receive it?
• Active or Passive Voice quiz — Choose the correct active or passive form.