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Active Voice

The document discusses the differences between active and passive voice. It explains that in active voice, the subject performs the action, while in passive voice, the subject receives the action. It provides examples of sentences in both voices and notes that passive voice sentences use an auxiliary verb and the past participle form of the main verb. The document also outlines rules for changing sentences from active to passive voice, such as exchanging the subject and object and changing the verb form.

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hamza
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190 views9 pages

Active Voice

The document discusses the differences between active and passive voice. It explains that in active voice, the subject performs the action, while in passive voice, the subject receives the action. It provides examples of sentences in both voices and notes that passive voice sentences use an auxiliary verb and the past participle form of the main verb. The document also outlines rules for changing sentences from active to passive voice, such as exchanging the subject and object and changing the verb form.

Uploaded by

hamza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Active and Passive Voice

SUBMITTED BY:
 Hamza Ahmad(45)
 Peeral Khan()
 Nouman Safqar()
 kashif Nawaz(46)
 Saqib Ali Raza()
SUBMITTED TO:
Sir Muhammad Adeel
DEPARTMENT:
LLB

UNIVERSITY OF SARGODHA
Grammar Rules for Active and Passive Voice
A transitive verb has two forms or two voices. These are the Active and
passive.

Active Voice – Here, the subject performs the action. He/she is the doer
of the action. It is a pretty straightforward relationship between
the subject and the verb. So, we can say that a verb is in the active voice
when the subject is the doer of the action that is expressed by the verb.

The sentences in Active Voice are simple and easy to understand.

Look at the following examples:

 I am drinking tea.
 He played cricket.
 They will help you.

Passive Voice – Here, the subject receives the action that is expressed
by the verb. Therefore, we can say that the verb is in passive when the
subject of the verb is acted upon.

It is generally used to show the action, which means that the focus is on
the action and not the subject who does the action. Sentences in Passive
Voice are not simple, as more importance is given to the action rather
than the subject.

Take a look at the following examples:

 Tea is being drunk by me.


 Cricket was played by him.
Structure of Active and Passive voice:
Active voice: Subject + Verb + Object

Passive voice: Object + Verb + Subject

You must have seen that the verb form changes when you switch from
active to passive voice. Now verbs used are of two kinds: the main and
the auxiliary verbs. Usually, an auxiliary verb is accompanied by the
main verb. The auxiliary verb like be, do or have shows the tense or
mood of the verb. For example, in the sentence “I have finished my
scuba diving course in the Havelock Islands”, finished is the main verb
and have is the auxiliary verb.

As a thumb rule, Passive voice sentences always take the third form of
the verb also called the past participle form of the verb (example- eat,
ate, eaten- eaten is the third form of a verb). Notice this being used in
the sentence above in the table: “The strawberry pie was eaten by me.”

So the usage of the main verb is pretty simple to convert. It’s the
auxiliary verb that we need to understand further. Let’s get into it:

Rules for changing Active voice to Passive voice:


1. Simply exchange the places of the subject and the object. The subject
should become the object and vice-e-versa while changing a sentence
from Active to Passive voice or reverse.

 Active voice: She bought a new car. (She is the subject and a new
car is an object.)
 Passive voice: A new car was bought by her. (A new car is a
subject and her is the object.)

2. Always blindly convert the main verb into its past participle or third
form while converting from active to passive voice. To remind you what
the third form of a verb looks like, let’s look at a few examples:

First form Second form Third form

Buy Bought Bought

Sing sang sung

Grow grew grown

 Active voice: Bhaanu wrote a book on gun violence.


 Passive voice: A book on gun violence was written by Bhaanu.
3. Use the word “by” before the subject in the passive sentence. For
example:

 Active voice: My brother sang a song.


 Passive voice: A song was sung by my brother.
4. Change of tense of the auxiliary word: Now when you change the verb
form of the main verb, the tense of the auxiliary also changes accordingly.
Let’s see this with the help of a few examples:

 Present tense–

 Active voice: Sun rises from the east.


 Passive voice: East is where the sun rises from.

 Past tense–

 Active voice: She walked my dog home.


 Passive voice: My dog was walked home by her.

 Future tense–

 Active voice: Sheena will do the craft work.


 Passive voice: Craft work will be done by Sheena.
5. Sometimes you may completely omit the subject from the passive voice
if the idea you are trying to convey is clear. You just have to take a
judgment call for that. For example:

 Active voice: Distance is measured in kilometers.


 Passive voice: Kilometers is a measurement unit for distance.
6. Words like “with” or “to” are also used in passive voice. You may
recall that we use “by” quite frequently in an active voice to passive
voice conversion.

 Active voice: I know her.


 Passive voice: She is known to me.
 Active voice: Love fills my heart.
 Passive voice: My heart is filled with love.

Now test yourself by solving these Problems and Practice Questions on


Active and Passive Voice.

That pretty much sums up our chapter of Active and Passive voice. We
recommend you pick up a few sentences below, identify whether they
are in active or passive voice and convert them to the other form.

 I love my music teacher.


 This painting is done by me.
 She cast a beautiful spell on me.
 I want to go home after school.
Look at the following table:
Tense Active Passive

Simple present keep is kept

Present continuous is keeping is being


kept

Simple past kept was


kept

Past continuous was keeping was


being kept

Present perfect have kept have


been kept

Past perfect had kept had


been kept

Simple Future will keep will be


kept

Conditional Present would keep would


be kept

Conditional Past would have kept would


have been kept

Present Infinitive to keep to be


kept
Perfect Infinitive to have kept to have
been kept

Present Participle keeping being


kept

Perfect Participle having kept having


been kept

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