Active and Passive Voice

Contents:

1. Identifying whether the given sentence is in Active or Passive Voice
2. Identify the verb, helping verb, subject, object and remaining sentence.
3. Changes in Pronouns
4. Changes in main verb and helping verb
5. Changing or Adding form of ‘to be’ verb

Brief Explanation:

1. Identifying whether the given sentence is in Active or Passive Voice

When we are learning about converting an Active Voice sentence into Passive Voice or vice versa, the first thing to do is to ‘identify’ whether the sentence is in Active or Passive Voice.

For this, we will identify if the sentence is in Passive Voice, because these sentences have a typical structure.

Most of them will have ‘by’ before the subject, but not all.

All passive voice sentences will have ‘to be’ verb + Past participle form of the main verb

For example,

1. All credit cards are accepted.

In the above sentence, ‘are’ is a form of ‘to be’ verb followed by past participle form of verb ‘accept’

• Test will be taken on Friday.

In the above sentence, ‘be’ is a form of ‘to be’ verb followed by past participle form of verb ‘take’

So, if the given sentence has the [‘to be’ verb + Past participle form of the main verb] combination in it, then it is definitely in Passive voice. And if it doesn’t, then it is in Active Voice.

• Identify the verb, helping verb, subject, object and remaining sentence.

This is the next step and the most important one because most students are unable to identify these parts of the sentence.

Verbs are action words. So, identifying simple action words is easy. But students who have weak vocabulary are unable to identify uncommon verbs such as conduct, persuade, accompany, etc. Therefore, having a strong vocabulary is definitely very helpful.

In Active voice sentence, the subject comes before the verb and the object comes after.

For example,

Adults must accompany the minors to the ground.

In the above sentence, ‘Adults’ comes before the verb, so it is the subject and ‘the minors’ comes after the verb, so it is the object.

Then, what is ‘must’. It is a helping verb; more specifically it is a modal auxiliary showing necessity.

‘to the ground’ is the remaining part of the sentence. Usually, such parts will begin with a preposition. We don’t have to worry about the remaining part of the sentence because it doesn’t undergo any change.

• Changes in Pronouns

While converting an Active Voice sentence into Passive Voice or vice versa, the position of subject and object is changed. So, if pronouns are used as subject and objects, they will undergo following changes:

Subjective pronouns (used before the verb)	Objective pronouns (used after the verb)
I	Me
We	us
You	you
They	Them
He	him
She	her
It	It

• Changes in main verb and helping verb

While converting an Active Voice sentence into Passive Voice, the past participle form of the main verb must be used. For most verb, the Past tense form and past participle form are the same (most end with ‘-ed’). For irregular verbs such as take, these forms are different (took and taken). So, students must be aware of these different forms of irregular verbs.

While converting a Passive Voice sentence into Active Voice, the past participle form of the verb must be changed into its appropriate form according to the ‘to be’ verb.

The helping verb will also undergo change depending what comes before it.

For examples,

Active Voice: Mother is making laddoos.

Passive Voice: Laddoos are being made by mother.

In the above example, the helping verb ‘is’ is used in the Active voice sentence because there is a singular noun ‘mother’ before it. But in Passive voice, ‘are’ is used because there is a plural noun ‘laddoos’ before it. We need to be careful not to change the tense – ‘is’ cannot be changed to ‘was’ or ‘be’

• Adding form of ‘to be’ verb

While converting an Active Voice sentence into Passive Voice, the appropriate form of ‘to be’ verb must be used.

Verbs in Active voice	Verbs in Passive voice
No Helping verb + Present tense form of main verb	Am/is/are + Past participle form of the verb
No Helping verb + Past tense form of main verb	Was/were + Past participle form of the verb
Modal auxiliary as the helping verb + Present tense form of main verb	Be + Past participle form of the verb
Am/is/are as the helping verb + ‘ing’ form of the main verb	Am/is/are + being + Past participle form of the verb
was/were as the helping verb + ‘ing’ form of the main verb	was/were + being + Past participle form of the verb
Have/has/had + Past participle form of the verb	Have/has/had + been + Past participle form of the verb

If all the above steps are followed properly using common sense, then converting Active Voice into Passive voice and vice versa is really a piece of cake. Enjoy.

Questions for Practice:

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. His mother gives him a mango plant in a pot.
2. All his friends wish Raju in the school.
3. The teacher takes them to the backyard.
4. The teacher plants the mango plant there.
5. The charts display children’s work on various topics.
6. Our teacher shows us short films with the help of the projector.
7. We keep our material there.
8. We keep our classroom clean.
9. Cows need a lot of looking after.

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. He gave them a small bundle of sticks.
2. He used more force.
3. This time the brothers learnt a lesson.
4. The couple spent a lot of time in idle talk.
5. He picked up a stout stick.
6. She hated her stepdaughter.
7. Roop Singh scored the first goal.
8. Two of them were made by the Captain of the Indian team.
9. He never played a selfish game.
10. He took the ball away from the German defenders.
11. A defeat stared them in the face.
12. Hitler was impressed by Dhyan Chand’s game.
13. Dhyan Chand turned down the offer.
14. Hitler awarded a special gold medal to Dhyan Chand.

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. I’ll not pull her tail.
2. I will give the cat some food.
3. The cat will love me.
4. We can have plenty of dahi.
5. I’ll use one of the pots for milk.
6. I’ll put the ghee in another jar.

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. They have ruined my field.
2. Germany had defeated several teams.
3. The German team had adopted a novel strategy.
4. The German dictator had offered Dhyan Chand a higher salary.
5. The Indian team was offering an equally strong resistance.

Solution:

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. He is given a mango plant in a pot by his mother.

A mango plant was given to him in a pot by his mother.

• Raju is wished in the school by all his friends.
• They are taken to the backyard by the teacher.
• The mango plant is planted there by the teacher.
• Children’s work on various topics is displayed by the charts.
• Short films are shown to us with the help of the projector by our teacher.

We are shown short films with the help of the projector by our teacher.

• Our material is kept there by us.
• Our classroom is kept clean by us.
• A lot of looking after is needed by cows.

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. A small bundle of sticks was given was given to them by him.

They were given a small bundle of sticks by him.

• More force was used by him.
• This time, a lesson was learnt by the brothers.
• A lot of time was spent in idle talk by the couple.
• A stout stick was picked up by him.
• Her stepdaughter was hated by her.
• The first goal was scored by Roop Singh.
• The Captain of the Indian team made two of them.
• A selfish game was never played by him.
• The ball was taken away from the German defenders by him.
• They were stared in the face by a defeat.
• Dhyan Chand’s game impressed Hitler.
• The offer was turned down by Dhyan Chand.
• Dhyan Chand was awarded a special gold medal by Hitler.

A special gold medal was awarded to Dhyan Chand by Hitler.

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. Her tail will not be pulled by me.
2. The cat will be given some food by me.

Some food will be given to the cat by me.

• I will be loved by the cat.
• Plenty of dahi can be had by us.
• One of the pots will be used for milk by me.
• The ghee will be put in another jar by me.

Change the voice of the following sentences:

1. My field has been ruined by them.
2. Several teams had been defeated by Germany.
3. A novel strategy had been adopted by the German team.
4. Dhyan Chand had been offered a higher salary by the German dictator.

A salary had been offered to Dhyan Chand by the German dictator.

An equally strong resistance was being offered by the Indian team.