
Look at these examples to see how the passive voice is used.
A lot of olive oil is produced in Italy.
This book was written by Angela Davis.
The suspect will be released tomorrow.
This product has not been tested on animals.
Try this exercise to test your grammar.
- Grammar test 1
Read the explanation to learn more.
Grammar explanation
We use the passive voice to change the focus of the sentence.
My bike was stolen. (passive – focus on my bike)
Someone stole my bike. (active – focus on someone)
We often use the passive:
- when we prefer not to mention who or what does the action (for example, it's not known, it's obvious or we don't want to say)
- so that we can start a sentence with the most important or most logical information
- in more formal or scientific writing.
How we make the passive
We make the passive using the verb be + past participle. We start the sentence with the object.
Avatar | was | directed by James Cameron. |
↓ | ↓ | ↓ |
Object | + be + | past participle |
It is not always necessary to add who or what did the action.
My flight | is | cancelled. |
↓ | ↓ | ↓ |
Object | + be + | past participle |
Only the form of be changes to make the tense. The past participle stays the same. Here are examples of the passive in its most common tenses.
Tense | Example | Structure |
Present simple | Alioli is made from oil, garlic and salt. | is/are + past participle |
Present continuous | The hall is being painted this week. | is/are being + past participle |
Past simple | John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. | was/were + past participle |
Past continuous | The signs were being put up last week. | was/were being + past participle |
Present perfect | Oranges have been grown here for centuries. | has/have been + past participle |
Past perfect | When he got home, he found that his flat had been burgled. | had been + past participle |
Future simple | The work will be finished next week. | will be + past participle |
Do this exercise to test your grammar again.
- Grammar test 2
Hello Kaisoo93,
You can reformulate sentences such as these to have a subject and a finite verb form, but it is not always passive. Depending on the context, an active form may be required:
Your second example also likely requires an active form:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi danohara,
I've updated the table now. Thanks so much for letting us know about the correction :)
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
The second sentence is correct as you are describing an action which began in the past and continues to the present.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Fiona,
Both forms are possible, depending on the context, of course.
The present perfect (have changed) is used when we are talking about the present result of a past action or event.
The present simple passive (are changed) tells us about the current situation. Normally, it does not necessarily mean that there is something different about the present as compared to the past. However, the verb 'change' already contains this meaning, so we have a situation in which the lexical item (the word) carries meaning which is normally part of the verb form. Even so, the present perfect is more common, with change as much as with other verbs.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello DaniWeebKage,
The first form is a present simple form and the second is a present perfect form. There's an explanation of the different uses of these forms in the Present tense section of our English grammar.
If you have any other specific questions, please let us know.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Pola,
This page is about how to correctly form and also use the passive voice. It's not correct to use it in a sentence like this one, and that's what this question is testing.
If you already knew this, that's great! It shows that you understand this important point.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Fiona,
The difference is the difference between the present simple ('is') and the present perfect ('has been' -- notice that 'have been' is not correct because 'time' takes a singular verb). The first one is a more general statement that could refer to a long period of time and the second one refers to a more specific time that began sometime in the past and is still happening now.
I'd suggest you read more a bit more about this on our Present simple and Present perfect pages.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Via,
Yes, that is grammatically correct and the two sentences effectively mean the same thing. The first one is much more commonly used.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi abo omar,
Yes! Nobody saw the cup is fine, and both of your passive sentences are fine too.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Kee_Fos,
Thanks for your suggestion! We'll consider that next time we review this page.
In the meantime, you can find some explanation and examples of the impersonal passive here: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/active-and-passive-voice
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Shreya,
These are interesting examples. Let me try to help.
1) The sentence is correct in the active voice. In this sentence, see doesn't mean 'see with your eyes'. It's a different meaning. Here, it means 'to be the time or place when something happens', and the subject is Flights to Sanya (i.e. it means something like 'Flights to Sanya have experienced or witnessed ...'). This is the third meaning of see listed on this page in the Cambridge Dictionary. Have a look there for more examples.
But one correction is needed: Flights to Sanya have seen ...
2) There's no need to use a passive in this sentence. It's fine to use the adjective ready.
As you point out, ready is also a verb so the passive form would be: All the children were readied to perform ... . But, using the passive means specifically that the children were readied by someone (e.g. by a teacher, or a group leader). That is, the children didn't get themselves ready. But there's no other information about that in this sentence, so there's no reason to prefer the passive.
Does that make sense?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Smiley1,
Interesting examples! Their meanings are very similar. But:
Does that make sense?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello alekanka,
Both of those can work -- it really depends on how you see the future. You can see an explanation of this on our Talking about the future page.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Karan Narang,
Although it looks like a passive sentence, 'I am tired' is simply the pronoun 'I' + the verb 'be' + the adjective 'tired'. Some past participles are routinely used as adjectives, and of course we can use the verb 'be' with them. It can sometimes be tricky to know when a sentence is passive or simply 'be' + an adjective, but especially in informal situations, it's probably not a passive verb.
I'm afraid the other two sentences you mention are not grammatically correct.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Learn,
I suppose you don't understand some words in these sentences? You can find 'to put out' (which means 'to extinguish' and 'steal' ('stole' is the past simple form of 'steal') in the dictionary.
Please note that the first sentence is missing a word -- it should say 'put it out'.
If you have any more questions, we're happy to help -- please just be a little more specific about what you don't understand.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello redream,
The sentence is not grammatically correct as written.
We're happy to explain language on our pages and sometimes from other published sources such as media or literature. However, we don't generally comment on remarks made in passing by people who we do not know and whose English may be far from perfect.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello CGL
I'm afraid that the verb 'have not put out' is active, not passive. You could make it passive by saying something like 'The fire still hasn't been put out by the fire service.'
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Jenny,
Yes, that's perfectly correct. It's quite a common form when we don't know or don't want to say who or what is performing the action.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello H_L,
We don't have a page focusing on transformation from one voice to the other, but we do have pages on active and passive voice with plenty of pairs of examples and explanations of the rules:
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/active-and-passive-voice
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Pandalapd
The subject of the verb 'saw' is 'someone' and the object is 'my talk', so a passive verb such as 'was seen' is not correct there, because a passive verb only has a subject and not an object. 'had seen' is also a possible correct answer there, but is not an option for that question.
For the second sentence, 'was found' is not correct for the same reason that 'was seen' wasn't correct for the first sentence: an active verb is needed, not a passive one. 'found' is also correct, but is not an option for that question.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello ahmed hefny,
Organisations like the fire service can be treated as both singular (an organisation or an institution) or plural (a team of people). Thus, both has and have are possible.
Other organisations like this include sports teams, governments, international organisations, the police, the army and others.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team