How and When to Use the Passive Voice

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Most of the English you speak is probably in the active voice. That’s a good thing because the active voice sounds more natural in most situations.

However, there are times when using the passive voice may be the better choice. This article will explain the differences between the two styles and give tips on how and when to use the passive voice naturally.

What is the Passive Voice?

Sentences in the active voice are more direct and clear, which makes them easier to use and to understand.

In the active voice, the structure of a sentence is subject-verb-object (SVO). For example:

Tom closed the door.

Here, Tom is the subject, “close" is the verb and the door is the object.

In sentences with the passive voice, the structure changes to object-verb-subject (OVS).

Here’s the previous sentence in the passive voice:

The door was closed by Tom.

Here, the action is more important than who performed the action.

If the second example sounds a little funny to you, it’s because active sentences are much more common. But the passive voice is still useful and important!

How Do You Form the Passive Voice?

To form the passive voice, instead of starting a sentence with the subject, start with the object. Then, add the verb “be” and use the past participle of the main verb.

Alex ate the pizza. > The pizza was eaten (by Alex).
Someone pushed the button. > The button was pushed.
Someone broke the glass. > The glass was broken.

If you want to mention the person or thing that performs an action, include them at the end of the sentence along with “by.”

The pizza was eaten by Alex.
The taxes were paid by the company.

Why Use the Passive Voice?

Now that we’ve looked at forming the passive voice, why do we use it? There are a few reasons:

When we don’t know who performed an action
When the person who performed an action is unimportant
To hide who has performed an action

Look at these example sentences:

The house was built 15 years ago.
The organization was founded to help the local community.
The package was delivered this morning.

In each of these examples, the person who performed these actions is either not known or not important to the conversation. That’s the perfect situation for using the passive voice!

In the first example above, you could also say, "Someone built the house 15 years ago," which is the same sentence but in the active voice. But because we don't know who built the house, simply removing the subject of the sentence by using the passive voice sounds more natural.

What about hiding who performed an action?

A puppy looking out from underneath a bed

In some situations, mentioning a specific person can sound like you are blaming or accusing them. In order to avoid this, people often don’t mention a person specifically — even when that person is actually the speaker!

We made a lot of mistakes. [active]
A lot of mistakes were made. [passive]

Caroline spilled a drink on the carpet. [active]
A drink was spilled on the carpet. [passive]

My puppy made a mess in the living room. [active]
A mess was made in the living room. [passive]

In these examples, the passive sentences avoid blaming someone by simply removing them from the sentence.

Wrap-Up

While the active voice is more common in most situations, there are still times when the passive voice may be better to use. Learning to switch between the two styles at the right moments will help you become a much stronger English speaker, so be sure to get comfortable using both.