Active and Passive Voice | Rules and Examples | English and Urdu

Active Voice and Passive Voice

Active voice is what is most commonly used while speaking and writing. In active voice the subject is doing the action and the object is receiving the action, The verb form in active voice depends on the tense the sentence is in.

In passive voice the subject and object switch places, which means that the subject receives the action and the object does the action. The passive voice uses the word by before its object and the past participle form of the verb.

Passive voice is a roundabout way of expressing the same thing as the active voice. We usually use passive voice more in writing than in speaking when our focus is on the action and not on its doer or when we don’t know who the doer of the action is.

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Key Rules

There are some rules which are necessary to learn in order to change Active Voice Sentence into Passive Voice Sentence. Rules are listed below

1. Object of AV (Active Voice) is changed into the Subject of PV (Passive Voice).
2. Put HV (helping verb) according to the tense used in AV.
3. Use third form of Verb after using the helping verb.
4. Put “By” immediately after the form of Verb
5. Subject of AV (Active Voice) is changed into the Object of PV (Passive Voice).

 

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These five rules are the backbone of Active and passive Voice. If you learn all the rules step by step, you may easily convert an Active Voice Sentence into Passive Voice Sentence.

Noted Point:                         

We will always use third form of verb in Passive Voice, irrespective of the tense used in Active Voice.

Lets learn all these rules with an example:

AV: You teach me.

Now this active voice sentence is in Present Indefinite Tense. To convert it into Passive Voice, we have to make some changes according to rules.

1. The first change we are gonna make is to convert the object of AV into the subject of PV. Object is me(the objective form of I). so it will be changed into I.

I

2. Second change is the correct use of Helping Verb. Since our Subject is I and is present indefinite tense, so we will use “AM” as helping verb

I

am

3. Third of verb is to put after helping verb. Third form of teach is Taught

I

am

taught

4. Use of “BY” immediately after the form of verb.

I

am

taught

by

5. Convert the Subject of AV into Object of PV. If we look at the Active Voice sentence, we’ll find that our subject is “YOU”. So it will be changed into the Object and will still remain “YOU”

I

am

taught

by

you

How to Make Changes in Tenses?

Simple Present Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	eats	An apple.
Passive	An apple	Is eaten	by Ahmad

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Present Continuous Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	is eating	An apple.
Passive	An apple	Is being eaten	by Ahmad

Present Perfect Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	has eaten	An apple
Passive	An apple	has been eaten	by Ahmad

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Simple Past Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	ate	An apple
Passive	An apple	Was eaten	By Ahmad

Past Continuous Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	was eating	An apple.
Passive	An apple	was being eaten	by Ahmad

Past Perfect Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	had eaten	An apple
Passive	An apple	had been eaten	by Ahmad

Simple Future Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	will eat	An apple
Passive	An apple	will be eaten	by Ahmad

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Future Perfect Tense
	Subject	Verb	Object
Active	Ahmad	will have eaten	An apple
Passive	An apple	will have been eaten	by Ahmad

 

It should be kept in mind that following tenses are not changed into Passive Voice

• Present Perfect Continuous Tense
• Past Perfect Continuous Tense
• Future Perfect Continuous Tense

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