1. Active and Passive Voice

An idea can be expressed in two different ways. We can do it by using a verb to indicate whether the subject performs an action (active voice) or receives the action (passive voice). Active voice: The verb is in the active voice when the subject does the action. EXAMPLE: A cat ate the fish. (Subject: cat / Verb: ate / Object: fish) Here, the doer of the action is a cat and the verb "ate" is in the active voice. The object comes after the verb. Passive voice: When action is done to the subject, the verb is in the passive voice. The previous object (fish) is now used as the subject. EXAMPLE: The fish was eaten by a cat. (Verb: eaten / Subject: fish) Here, action is done to the subject and the verb "was eaten" is in the passive voice. The subject comes before the verb. In changing a sentence, as above, from active voice to one in the passive voice, we make the object of the active voice sentence the subject of the passive voice sentence. The verb used in a passive voice sentence is formed by adding the past participle to "to be" (am, is, are, was, were, has been, have been, will be, etc.) Passive verbs have the same tenses (simple present tense, present continuous tense, present perfect tense, etc.) as active verbs. Only verbs which take on an object can be changed to the passive. (Example: He runs away. This sentence has no object, so it's not possible to turn it into a passive sentence.) When we choose passive sentences, we use the preposition 'by' to show who or what does or has done the action (as shown above: The fish was eaten by a cat.) We use 'by' only when we have to.