Verb Voice
Master voice transformations — when and how to use active and passive constructions.
Active and Passive Voice on Grammartier spans B1–C1 levels, with 18 interactive lessons including Active Voice, Passive Voice and Changing Active to Passive — each with clear explanations, real examples, and a quiz you can score instantly.
Active and passive voice are two ways of structuring the same information — the difference is who (or what) you put in the subject position. The active voice puts the doer first and is direct, while the passive voice puts the action or receiver first and is more formal. This page covers when to use each one, how to form the passive across all tenses, and the mistakes that trip up even confident learners. Choose any sub-topic below to dive into a full interactive quiz.
Subject + be + past participle (+ by + agent)
Subject + be + not + past participle (+ by + agent)
Be + subject + past participle (+ by + agent)?
When to Use Active Voice
Direct, personal, concise — the standard choice for most writing. The subject performs the action clearly.
When to Use Passive Voice
Use when the action or receiver is more important than the doer, when the doer is unknown, or in formal/academic contexts.
Agent: To Include or Omit?
Include the agent (by + noun) when the doer is important or surprising. Omit it when the doer is obvious, unknown, or irrelevant.
Passive in Academic & Scientific Writing
The passive is standard in scientific writing to emphasise the process, not the researcher. Also common in news and legal language.
Not all verbs can become passive
Intransitive verbs — verbs that don't take an object (arrive, sleep, cry, happen, fall) — cannot be made passive because there's no receiver of the action. You can say She arrived late but not Late was arrived by her.
Stative passives describe a state, not an action
Stative passives (subject + be + past participle as adjective) describe a resulting state. Compare: The window was broken (dynamic — someone broke it) vs. The window is broken (stative — describing its current state). Stative passives usually leave out the by-phrase because the agent isn't the point — but it's not a hard rule: The house is surrounded by trees is a stative passive that does include one.
The book was wrote by Mark Twain.
The book was written by Mark Twain.
The passive always needs the past participle, not the past simple. Write → wrote (past simple) → written (past participle).
The problem is being fix right now.
The problem is being fixed right now.
The past participle of fix is fixed, not fix. Don't drop the -ed in regular passive forms.
New regulations has been introduced.
New regulations have been introduced.
The auxiliary verb (have/has/had) must agree with the passive subject. Regulations (plural) → have been, not has been.
The meeting will hold next week.
The meeting will be held next week.
Hold is transitive here — the meeting doesn't hold itself, it is held by someone. This is a voice-choice error, not a verb-form error.
The passive always follows the same core pattern — be + past participle — but be takes a different form depending on the tense. These 6 rows cover the most common passive structures in modern English, from simple tenses to non-finite forms.
| Feature | Active | Passive | Tense / Structure | Key Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present & Past Simple | She writes the report. | The report is written (by her). | Present & Past Simple | be (is/are/was/were) + past participle |
| Present & Past Continuous | She is writing the report. | The report is being written (by her). | Present & Past Continuous | be (is/are/was/were) + being + past participle |
| Present & Past Perfect | She has written the report. | The report has been written (by her). | Present & Past Perfect | have/has/had + been + past participle |
| Future (will) | She will write the report. | The report will be written (by her). | Future (will) | will + be + past participle |
| Modal Verbs | She must write the report. | The report must be written (by her). | Modal Verbs | modal + be + past participle |
| Passive Infinitive | Someone needs to finish the report. | The report needs to be finished. | Passive Infinitive | (modal/verb) + to be + past participle |
Active voice (subject performs the action) is direct and personal — use it for most writing. Passive voice (subject receives the action) is formed with be + past participle — use it when the doer is unknown, unimportant, or when you want to emphasise the action or receiver. The passive can be formed in any tense by conjugating be to match the tense and adding the past participle. Intransitive verbs (no object) cannot become passive. For everyday writing, prefer the active voice; for academic, scientific, and formal writing, the passive has an essential place.
Further reading: Cambridge Dictionary — Active and passive voice, Purdue OWL — Active vs. Passive Voice
In the active voice, the subject performs the action (The chef cooked dinner). In the passive voice, the subject receives the action (Dinner was cooked by the chef). The core information is the same — the difference is which element you put in the subject position.
Three steps: (1) Move the object to the subject position. (2) Conjugate the verb be to match the original tense. (3) Add the past participle of the main verb, plus by + original subject if you want to include the agent. Example: Active The chef cooks dinner → Passive Dinner is cooked (by the chef).
Use the passive when: the doer is unknown (My phone was stolen), the doer is obvious (VAT must be paid), the action or receiver is more important (Ten people were injured), or in formal/academic writing (The mixture was heated). In most other situations, the active voice is clearer and more direct.
No — only transitive verbs (verbs that take an object) can become passive. Intransitive verbs like arrive, sleep, happen, take place, and fall do not have objects, so they cannot form a passive. You cannot say Late was arrived by her or A nap was slept by the cat.
Both are passive, but the tense changes the meaning. Was broken (past simple passive) describes a completed action at a specific past time: The window was broken yesterday. Has been broken (present perfect passive) connects a past action to the present — the result still matters: The window has been broken for weeks (and it's still broken now).
No — the passive is not grammatically wrong, and it's essential in certain contexts. However, overusing the passive can make writing sound evasive, wordy, or bureaucratic. The active voice is generally preferred for clarity and engagement. The key is knowing when each voice is appropriate rather than avoiding one entirely.
Understand the active voice — where the subject performs the action — and when to prefer it over the passive for clarity and directness.
Learn to form and use the passive voice across all tenses to shift focus from the doer to the action or result.
Learn the step-by-step process of converting active sentences to passive across all tenses, with and without an agent.
Form the passive voice correctly in all tenses — present, past, future, perfect, and continuous — with clear examples.
Form passive questions correctly across tenses — Was it built? Has it been finished? Will it be announced? — without common word-order errors.
Form passive negatives correctly — was not built, has not been finished, will not be approved — across all major tenses.
Understand when to include and when to omit the agent (by + noun) in passive sentences, and how it changes emphasis and formality.
Combine modal verbs with the passive — must be done, should be checked, could have been avoided — for obligation, advice, and speculation.
Use impersonal passive structures — It is said that…, It is believed that…, It is reported that… — common in formal, journalistic, and academic English.
Use have/get + object + past participle to describe services arranged or caused — I had my car repaired. She got her hair done.
Distinguish between dynamic passives (describing actions: The window was broken) and stative passives (describing states: The window is broken).
Form passives from verbs with two objects — give, send, offer, show — choosing which object becomes the passive subject.
Master when to use active voice (direct, personal, dynamic) and when passive is preferred (formal, impersonal, unknown agent).
Use it is said that, he is believed to, they are thought to in formal writing.
Form and use passive infinitive structures — to be done, to have been done.
Understand passive gerund forms — being done, having been done — and their uses.
Master complex passive constructions across all tenses and modal forms.
Use passive reporting structures — it is alleged that, she is understood to have — in formal contexts.