Active and Passive Voice: Simple Present and Past

Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb.

When the subject of a sentence performs the verb’s action, we say that the sentence is in the active voice.

SN + Verb -s/-es/-ies + Object

PN + Root Verb + Object​

Daniel eats breakfast every morning.

They do their homework very diligently.​

SN/PN + Past Verb + Object

​Regular verb: walk - walked​

Irregular verb: eat - ate​

The two panda cubs played together.

For example: Regular verb

A herd of gazelles ran across the field of grass.​

For example: Irregular Verb

Passive voice means that a subject is a recipient of a verb’s action.

Basically, the verb happens to the subject (the subject is being acted upon instead of doing the action).

A sentence is in the passive voice on the other hand, when the subject is acted on by the verb.

Object + verb to be + Past Participle + [by]* + [subject]*

The one marked with * is optional.​

To put it in simpler term,

• is formed from a verb.

• is used as an adjective or verb tense.

• probably ends with -ed, -d, -t, -en or -n.​

Past Participle

Daniel and Johan take their younger brother to the park.

Subj. + verb + obj.

Their younger brother is taken [by Daniel and Johan] to the park.

Obj. + vtb + past participle + [by + Subj.]

My mother attended her niece's wedding ceremony last month.

Her niece's wedding ceremony was attended by my mother last month.​

• The passive voice is often more wordy than the active voice.

• In the passive voice, the subject is often part of a prepositional phrase (especially using "by").

• Passive voice often uses helping or linking verbs ("to be" verbs).

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