Passive Voice (basics)

In an active sentence, the subject does the action: 'Farmers grow coffee in Brazil.' In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action: 'Coffee is grown in Brazil.' The focus moves from the doer to the thing affected.

Form the present simple passive with am/is/are + past participle: 'English is spoken here.' 'These phones are made in South Korea.' Use 'is' with singular and uncountable nouns and 'are' with plurals.

The present simple passive is common for facts, processes, rules and things that happen regularly: 'The office is cleaned every evening.' 'Smoking is not allowed on the train.'

Regular past participles end in -ed (cleaned, allowed, produced). Many common ones are irregular: made, sold, spoken, written, grown, given, taken, known, found, built.

The past simple passive describes what happened to someone or something in the past: 'The bridge was built in 1890.' 'Two people were injured in the accident.'

Form: was/were + past participle. Use 'was' with singular and uncountable subjects and 'were' with plural subjects and 'you'.

It is very common in history, news reports and descriptions of inventions and discoveries, where the event matters more than the person: 'Penicillin was discovered in 1928.' 'The thieves were caught two days later.'

'Be born' is always passive in form: 'I was born in 1998' (not 'I am born' or 'I born'). 'Where were you born?'

To change an active sentence into a passive one, start with the object: 'Someone stole my car' → 'My car…'. Then use 'be' in the same tense as the active verb, plus the past participle: stole → was stolen. Finally, add 'by + the doer' only if it is useful. In 'My car was stolen', 'by someone' would add nothing, so we leave it out.

Only verbs that take an object can be passive. Verbs like happen, arrive, die, sleep, go and come have no passive: 'The accident happened at night' (not 'was happened').

Negatives: add 'not' after am/is/are/was/were: 'The rooms aren't cleaned on Sundays.' 'I wasn't told about the meeting.'

Questions: put am/is/are/was/were before the subject: 'Is breakfast included?' 'When was the castle built?' 'Were you invited?' Don't use do/does/did in passive questions.

In a passive sentence, the person or thing that does the action is called the agent. Add it with 'by' when it is important, new or interesting information: 'Hamlet was written by Shakespeare.' 'Guernica was painted by Pablo Picasso.'

Leave the agent out when it is unknown, obvious or not important: 'My phone was stolen' (I don't know who stole it). 'He was arrested' (obviously by the police). 'The streets are cleaned every morning' (who cleans them doesn't matter).

Most passive sentences in everyday English have no agent. Phrases like 'by someone', 'by people' or 'by them' add nothing, so leave them out.

Don't confuse 'by' (the agent) with 'with' (the tool or thing used): 'The window was broken with a stone.' Also compare 'made by' (the maker) with 'made of/from' (the material): 'This table was made by my uncle. It's made of oak.'

The passive is not 'better' or more advanced than the active — it is a tool for choosing what to talk about first.

Use it when the doer is unknown ('My bike was stolen last night'), obvious ('The suspect was arrested' — by the police) or not important, because the action or result matters more ('The museum was opened in 1995').

It is also typical when describing processes or giving facts ('First, the grapes are picked. Then they are crushed.'), and in formal or impersonal texts such as notices, news and reports ('Passengers are requested to remain seated.').

Use the active when the doer is important or when the active is simply clearer. 'My brother fixed my bike' is better than 'My bike was fixed by my brother' in most conversations. In everyday speech, the active is much more common.