be • do • have
Nouns, Subjects, and Objects
Passive Voice
Passive Voice
If you have questions about what a subject or object is in a sentence, please read here, and then return to this page, since subjects and objects are essential to understanding passive voice.
Where and why is passive voice used?
Passive voice is common in articles, especially in science and engineering, and also in news. We use passive voice when we are more interested in how a person or thing is affected than in who or what does the action.
Passive voice can be used with transitive verbs, which are verbs that have an object. Here are three examples-
“I make the bed every morning.”
“I cleaned the house last weekend.”
“I haven’t done my report yet.”
These verbs are transitive, because you make, clean, or do something.
Intransitive verbs don’t have an object. These verbs can’t be used in passive voice.
“I walk to school every day.”
“I went to a party last weekend.”
“I have been lazy about doing my report.”
Walk, go, and be can’t be used with passive voice, because there is no object after these verbs.
When I say “I make the bed every morning,” this is called active voice, because I do the action. The subject, I, is active.
If we write this example in passive voice, we would write, “The bed is made every morning.”
The subject is now the bed. It’s considered passive because the bed doesn’t do the action in the sentence, make. We don’t know who makes the bed, and it isn’t important. We are more interested in the bed.
Let’s take a look at the other two examples-
“I cleaned the house last weekend.”
“I haven’t done my report yet.”
If we change these examples to passive voice, we would write -
The house was cleaned last weekend.
The report hasn’t been done yet.
If you look at the three examples in passive voice, they follow the same structure. They have a passive subject (that doesn’t do the action), followed by the verb be (is, was, and hasn’t been in the three examples), and a verb in past participle (made, cleaned, and done in the three examples). The rest of the sentence could be short or long, but the beginning of a sentence in passive voice will always follow this structure.
How do I know if I sentence is active or passive?
Look at two things. First, the subject. Identify if it does the action or not. If it doesn’t do the action, it’s a passive subject. Second, look to see after the subject if it has the verb be (conjugated) and a verb in past participle. If it does, it’s passive voice.
Let's practice!
ARTICLE FROM BBC NEWS: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66893661
Dusty samples from the "most dangerous known rock in the Solar System" have been brought to Earth.
The American space agency Nasa landed the materials in a capsule that came down in the West Desert of Utah state.
The samples had been scooped up from the surface of asteroid Bennu in 2020 by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft.
Nasa wants to learn more about the mountainous object, not least because it has an outside chance of hitting our planet in the next 300 years.
But more than this, the samples are likely to provide fresh insights into the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago and possibly even how life got started on our world.
This text has two examples of passive voice. Can you find them?