Active Voice vs Passive Voice
Active voice and passive voice play a major role in the field of English grammar, making it necessary to know the difference between active voice and passive voice. In other words, active voice and passive voice are two kinds of voices that should be used with a difference in English grammar, and hence it is very important to understand the difference between the two. Active and passive voice is a very difficult subject area for many English learners because of the many facts one has to remember in order to turn a sentence from active voice to passive voice. However, if you are able to have a clear idea from the beginning, mastering passive voice is not so hard.
What is Active Voice?
Active voice is used with a subject at the beginning of a sentence. Observe the sentence given below.
Shah built that toy house.
Here, you can see that the subject Shah is used at the beginning of the sentence. If you look at the sentence structure of this sentence, you will see that the subject is followed by the verb ‘built’, and that in turn is followed by the object ‘toy house.’
Unlike passive voice, active voice is generally used in direct conversations.
What is Passive Voice?
In the passive voice, the subject is used in the instrumental case. The object of the active voice is used at the beginning of the sentence. In the example mentioned above, the word ‘toy house’ is the object of the active voice. This object is used at the beginning of the passive voice. In other words, it can be said that the object of the active voice becomes the subject of the passive voice. Look at the following example.
That toy house was built by Shah.
This is the passive voice sentence of the previously mentioned active voice sentence. Here, the object of the active voice has become the subject. Also, the verb has changed when it comes to passive voice.
Passive voice is generally used for descriptive purposes. It is interesting to note that the passive voice appears like the past tense in a different form. Look at this example as well.
Active voice: Francis gave the book to James.
Passive voice: The book was given by Francis to James.
In the example given above, you can see that Francis, who is the subject of the active voice, is used in the instrumental case while the word ‘book’, which is the object in the active voice, is used as the subject in the passive voice.
Passive voice verb is conjugated in the following manner.
be verb in the given tense, in the active voice sentence + past participle of the given verb.
If you look at the Francis example, you can see that the active sentence is in the past tense. Therefore, in the passive voice, be verb becomes was (singular third person past tense of the be verb). Then, the past participle of gave is given. In the end, as shown in the passive voice example given above, the complete passive verb is ‘was given.’
What is the difference between Active Voice and Passive Voice?
It is important to know that both active voice and passive voice are used extensively in written English, but with a difference.
• The object of the active voice becomes the subject in the passive voice and the subject of the active voice is used in the instrumental case in the passive voice. This is the main difference between active voice and passive voice.
• Passive voice is generally used for descriptive purposes. On the other hand, active voice is generally used in direct conversations.
Images Courtesy:
- Passive example by Passive Active Voice at pppst.com