How to Use the Passive Voice in English English Grammar Lesson
Hi, I’m Olivier.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn about the passive
voice in English.
You can see what it is, how to form it, and
how to use it.
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But now, let’s start with the basics.
What is the passive voice?
Look at these sentences: ‘This dish is made
with eggs and cheese.’
‘The car was badly damaged in the accident.’
‘Their house looks like it hasn’t been
cleaned for months.’
All of these examples use the passive voice.
Can you see how and why?
Let’s look.
In a regular, active sentence, you start with
a subject, then you add a verb, which often
has an object.
For example: ‘A dog bit me when I was five.’
Can you find the subject, verb and object
in this sentence?
To make the sentence passive, the subject
and object change places: ‘I was bitten
by a dog when I was five.’
When you make a sentence passive, you only
change the subject, verb and object.
Everything else stays the same.
In this example, ‘when I was five’ isn’t
part of the subject-verb-object structure,
so it’s the same whether the sentence is
active or passive.
Next, let’s see how to form the passive
voice.
Look at three sentences from the start of
the lesson again.
They look different, but they all contain
the passive.
What do the sentences have in common?
All three sentences contain the verb ‘be’
and a past participle—also called the 3rd
form.
This is what you need to form passive sentences.
Let’s do some practice!
Can you add the missing verbs to these three
sentences?
If you’re not sure, remember the rule from
before: you need ‘be’ plus a past participle.
Here, you need to put the verbs into the past
participle form.
Pause the video and think about your answers.
Ready?
Here are the full sentences.
Here’s a question: these sentences contain
the verb ‘be’, but it’s different in
each sentence.
Do you know why?
Let’s look together!
What do you do if you want to make a passive
sentence past, or future, or present perfect?
What changes?
Look at our last three examples again.
Remember that the passive is made of two parts:
‘be’ plus a past participle.
What changes, and what stays the same?
The answer: you can change the verb ‘be’
to use different tenses and times.
The past participle never changes. Whether
you’re talking about the past, the present,
or the future, the past participle stays the
same.
Let’s see how this works:
Past: ‘The letters were sent to all our
customers last week.’
Present: ‘The letters are sent to all our
customers every week.’
Present perfect: ‘The letters have been
sent to all our customers this week.’
Future with ‘will’: ‘The letters will
be sent to all our customers next week.’
Of course, there are other possible forms,
but the idea is the same.
There are also passive infinitives with ‘to’:
‘The letters need to be sent to all our
customers.’
And, there are passive –ing forms: ‘Many
customers like being sent regular newsletters.’
You can see the same pattern every time: ‘be’
plus a past participle, and the verb ‘be’
can change to show different times or forms.
The past participle never changes, in any
form of the passive!
Let’s do a quick test.
Look at a sentence: ‘This problem (be) solved
by our IT team.’
Your job is to write five different versions
of this sentence.
One: write the sentence in the present simple.
Two: make it present continuous
Three: make it past simple.
Four: make it present perfect.
Five: make it future with ‘going to’.
Pause the video, and write your sentences.
You’ll see the answers in a few seconds.
Ready?
Here are the answers.
How did you do?
Could you write the five sentences correctly?
If you could, then well done!
If not, then you can review this section and
try to work out why you made mistakes.
OK, now you know the most important points
about how the passive is formed, but why do
you use the passive?
There are three common reasons to use the
passive voice.
One: you want to change the emphasis of your
sentence.
Two: the subject of your sentence is unknown
or unimportant.
Three: you want to sound more impersonal or
indirect.
Let’s look at these one by one.
First, use the passive to change the emphasis
of your sentence.
Look at two sentences: ‘Leonardo da Vinci
painted the Mona Lisa.’
‘The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da
Vinci.’
The first sentence is active, and the second
is passive.
What’s the difference?
If you’re not sure, think about this: which
is the most important idea in each sentence?
In the first sentence, you’re more interested
in Leonardo da Vinci.
In the second sentence, you’re more interested
in the Mona Lisa.
In English, putting an idea at the beginning
of a sentence shows that it’s more important.
You can use the passive to change the emphasis
of a sentence, and show what you think is
the most important idea.
Secondly, use the passive when the subject
is unknown or unimportant.
What does that mean?
Let’s look: ‘My bike was stolen.’
‘The kitchen has been cleaned today.’
‘She was arrested for shoplifting.’
Why do you think you use the passive in these
three cases?
In these examples, you either don’t know
or don’t care who did the action.
My bike was stolen—by whom?
I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter.
What matters is the fact that it was stolen.
I don’t have my bicycle any more.
The kitchen has been cleaned today—by whom?
Here, it doesn’t matter.
You only care about the fact that the kitchen
is now clean.
She was arrested—by whom?
By the police, of course!
You don’t care exactly who arrested her.
You know that the police arrested her, because
it’s obvious from the context.
No one else can arrest people.
In these sentences, you only care about the
action itself.
You don’t know or care who did it.
There’s one more common reason to use the
passive: to sound impersonal.
Here’s a question: what’s the difference
between these two examples?
‘You need to do this by the end of the week.’
‘This needs to be done by the end of the
week.’
If someone says this to you, the basic meaning
is the same.
So what’s the difference?
The second sentence, with the passive, is
more indirect and impersonal.
This is because it avoids the words ‘You
need to…’ which appear in the first sentence.
Using the passive in this way can help you
to sound more formal and polite.
Saying: ‘You need to do this by the end
of the week’ is very direct.
It sounds like an order, which could be rude
in some situations.
Now you know how to form the passive, and
the most common ways to use it, but there’s
one more important point.
Many problems English learners have with the
passive happen because they overuse it.
Here’s the important point: don’t use
the passive if you don’t have a good reason
to use it.
If you use the passive, especially when you’re
writing, think about why you’re using it.
Do you need to use it to change the emphasis
of your sentence?
Do you need to sound more formal and impersonal?
Do you want to focus on the action, instead
of whoever did the action?
If not, don’t use the passive.
Using the passive makes your sentences longer
and more complicated.
This isn’t good unless it’s necessary.
First, it’s inefficient, because you’ll
need more words to express the same ideas.
Second, it makes your writing harder to read.
Let’s do some quick practice.
You’re going to see five sentences.
For each one, you should decide if it’s
necessary to use the passive or not.
Here are the five sentences: ‘We were asked
by our friends to bring a dessert for the
party.’
‘The proposed policy is strongly supported
by conservative voters.’
‘It was decided not to follow the recommendations
outlined in the report.’
‘A variety of measures could be taken to
diminish the detrimental effects of global
warming.’
‘The website will be finished and ready
to launch by the end of the month.’
What do you think?
Are these good examples of using the passive,
or not?
Remember that to use the passive, you need
a good reason.
If there’s no reason, don’t use it.
Pause the video if you want more time to look
at these.
Otherwise, let’s look at the sentences.
In the first sentence, there’s no good reason
to use the passive.
Using the passive here only makes the sentence
longer and more inefficient.
The sentence should be active and direct:
‘Our friends asked us to bring a dessert
for the party.’
In the second sentence, you probably shouldn’t
use the passive.
You could argue that you use the passive here
to emphasise the idea of ‘proposed policy’,
but the words ‘proposed policy’ are vague,
and if you haven’t defined the idea, then
why emphasise it?
Again, this sentence should almost certainly
be active: ‘Conservative voters strongly
support the proposed policy.’
In the third sentence, there’s one possible
reason to use the passive: to make the sentence
more impersonal.
Perhaps you don’t want to say exactly who
decided to do this.
In this case, using the passive is appropriate.
The fourth sentence is a good example of passive
misuse.
The problem is that it’s easy to use the
passive voice to make unclear, empty sentences.
In this sentence, what exactly is the writer
saying?
‘A variety of measures’ is so vague that
it could mean anything.
Making this sentence active won’t solve
the problem; instead, you would need to be
more specific and explain your ideas more
precisely.
By the way, this is common in IELTS essays.
Again, it’s not a language problem; it’s
an ideas problem.
It’s possible to construct long, complicated
sentences using the passive which don’t
say anything, but this is bad writing and
it certainly won’t help you in an exam like
IELTS.
The fifth sentence is a good example of using
the passive.
In this case, it’s not important who will
finish the website; it’s important that
this work will be finished by the end of the
month.
Don’t forget to check out the full version
of this lesson on our website, and try the
quiz to see how much you’ve understood!
Thanks for watching!
See you next time!