Introduction
Vivana has sent us a question. She wants to know what the passive voice is.
How to make the passive
A passive is where we take the object on an active sentence and make it the subject of a new sentence. We usually form it by using the verb ‘be’ and the past participle. It is a voice, not a tense, so it can be used with different tense of ‘be’.
- The letter was written.
- The chemicals are mixed together.
- Our tours are led by local experts.
We don’t use the passive with intransitive verbs and some state verbs (have, belong, fit).
When we use the passive
1. Formal writing often focuses on actions and less on who is doing these actions. Passive sentences are very common in formal writing
- The mixture is heated up.
- The results were observed.
2. To make information flow better in a paragraph, we often want to vary the order in which it appears in sentences. If one sentences starts by mentioning something from the previous sentence it can be easier to read. The passive is one way to do this.
- We offer tours of the city. Our tours are led by local experts.
- This is our latest song. It was written by everyone in the band.
3. Sometimes we don’t care who does an action, or we don’t know who did it. Using the passive means we don’t need to mention who did something.
- This phone has been cleverly designed.
- My bike has been stolen.
4. Because the passive lets us avoid saying who has done something, it can be used when someone wants to hide the fact that they have done something wrong or bad.
- I’m afraid all the sweets have been eaten.
- Mistakes have been made in this process.