Explained Rules of Active Passive voice with Examples

Dear Students, in this post we are going to teach you rules of active passive voice. Before going deep for rules of active & passive voice, we must know what is active voice and passive voice. Lets start.

What is Active voice

In active voice sentences, the subject performs the action signified by the verb.  The sentences are said to be in the active voice.

These examples show that the subject is performing the verb’s action.

• The beggar must have eaten four zinger burger.
• Amaar mailed the letter.
• Monkey lived in the Zoo.

 

NOTE: “Monkey lived in the zoo“ cannot be changed to passive voice because the sentence does not have a direct object.

Passive voice sentence may become difficult to understand the meaning for reader due to the addition of words and changing the normal doer-action-receiver of action direction.

As the examples above mentioned for active voice are easier to understand but somehow difficult for passive voice sentence.

It is usually better to practice the ACTIVE voice.

 

What is Passive Voice

In Passive Voice sentences, the subject do not act upon verb, but it is being acted upon by the verb. The sentences are said to be in the passive voice.

These examples show how the subject-verb relationship has changed.

• Four Zinger Burger must have been eaten by the beggar.
• The letter was mailed by amaar.

 

Note: It should be noted that following tenses can not be formed into passive voice.

• Present Perfect Continuous Tense
• Past Perfect Continuous Tense
• Future Perfect Continuous Tense
• Future Continuous Tense

 

RULES FOR ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE

Following are rules for converting the active voice sentences into passive voice sentences. Let’s check and learn.

• Whenever active voice sentence is given to you, and you have to convert it into passive voice sentences, then first you look at the sentence carefully that what is subject in sentence and what is object and what is verb given and is it in present, past or in future.

Emma is watching a Move. (Active Voice)

• Next step is to just change the position of subject in place of  object and object in place of subject, (interchange subject and object position), and verb according the following conversion rules explained below:

A movie is being watched by Emma. (Passive Voice)

 

Rules for Conversion of Active and Passive Voice with examples

TENSES	ACTIVE VOICE	PASSIVE VOICE
Present simple	Subject + V1+s/es+ object	Object+ is/am/are+ V3+ by + subject
Present continuous	Subject + is/am/are+ v1+ ing + object	Object+ is/am/are+ being+ V3+ by + subject
Present perfect	Subject + has/have+ v3+ object	Object+ has/have+ been+ V3+ by + subject
Past simple	Subject + V2+ object	Object+ was/were V3+ by + subject
Past continuous	Subject + was/were + v1+ing+ object.	Object+ was/were +being+V3+ by + subject
Past perfect	Subject + had + v3+ object.	Object+ had+been +V3+ by + subject
Future simple	Subject + will+ v1+ object	Object+ will+ be +V3+ by + subject
Future perfect	Subject + will+ have +v3+ object.	Object+ will+ have+ been +V3+ by + subject

 

Rule 1. Identify the (S+V+O) Subject, Verb and object in the active sentence to convert to passive voice

Example: 

She drives a Ferrari Car. (Subject – She, verb – Drives, object – a Ferrari Car)

 

Rule 2. Interchange the object and subject with each other, i.e. object of the active sentence become the subject of the passive sentence.

Example:

Active voice: She drives a Ferrari car. (Subject – She, Verb – drives, Object – a Ferrari car)

Passive Voice: The Ferrari car is driven by her. (Object a Ferrari car is interchanged with the subject She).

 

Rule 3. Change the base verb given in the active sentence into the past participle such as. third form of verb in a passive sentence i.e. preceded by (By, With, to, etc). Remember Base verbs are never used in passive voice sentences.

Passive Voice: The Ferrari car is driven by her. (Verb: drives changed into past participle i.e. driven and also preceded by word “by”).

 

Rule 4. Always use the suitable auxiliary verb such as is, am, are, was, etc.). The rules for using auxiliary verbs in passive voice sentences are different for each tense as per chart rule given above.

Example:

• The diary milk chocolate  is eaten by James
•  A novel was not bought by him
• Mayo Rolls are being eaten by them.

 

Rule 5. While conversion passive voice sentences, the pronoun used in the sentence also changes in the following manner.

Active Voice	Passive Voice
I	Me
We	Us
He	Him
She	Her
They	Them
You	You
It	It

 

Rule 6. In passive voice sentence subject can be omitted because sentence already give enough meaning without subject.

Petrol is sold in liters

Example: 

• Active voice: Emma prepares lunch.
• Passive voice: The lunch is prepared by her.
• Active voice: Tom Cruise knows her.
• Passive voice: She is known to Tom Cruise.