The Passive Voice in English: A Complete Guide

Description: Learn how to form and use the passive voice in English. Includes rules, examples, common mistakes, and practice tips.

Introduction

In active sentences, the subject does the action. In passive sentences, the subject receives the action. Passive is common in news, reports, and formal writing.

How to Form Passive

Form: be + past participle.

• Present Simple: The car is washed every day.
• Past Simple: The car was washed yesterday.
• Future: The car will be washed tomorrow.

When to Use Passive

• When the doer is unknown/unimportant. The window was broken.
• When we focus on the result, not the doer. The law was passed in 1999.
• In formal style (reports, news, science).

Active vs Passive

• Active: The chef cooked the meal.
• Passive: The meal was cooked (by the chef).
  → Use “by + agent” only if necessary.

Common Mistakes

• ❌ The car washed yesterday. → ✔ The car was washed yesterday.
• ❌ He was gave a gift. → ✔ He was given a gift.
• Overusing passive (makes writing heavy).

Practice Plan

• Day 1: Rewrite 10 active → passive.
• Day 2: Write 5 sentences with unknown agent.
• Day 3: Write 5 formal report-style passives.
• Day 4: Read a news article, highlight passives.
• Day 5: Mix active + passive in a story.

Conclusion

Passive is useful but should be balanced with active. Use it for focus on result or formal tone.

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