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The passive voice is one in which the subject receives the action (patient subject) and the object performs it (agent complement).
When is the passive
used in English?
1. When we are more interested in the person or thing that receives the action than in the person or thing that performs the action.
Look at these two sentences. Sentence A is passive, and sentence B is active:
A. Romeo & Juliet was written by William Shakespeare.
B. Shakespeare wrote Romeo & Juliet.
In sentence A, we are more interested in the play, Romeo and Juliet, while sentence B could be found in a text about Shakespeare, where we want to focus more on him than on the play he wrote.
2. When the “agent” is obvious or unimportant
The agent complement in a passive sentence is the person or thing that performs or causes the action. Sometimes it is not important, or it is so obvious that we do not have to mention it.
He was arrested last night.
Here we do not need to say “The police arrested him”, since it is obvious that only the police have the power to carry out an arrest.
3. When we are describing processes and we want to maintain the impersonal nature of the description.
If we are describing how something is done, for example, we want to focus on the actions, not who performs them:
Chocolate eggs are made with milk and cocoa. The mixture is then poured into molds (Chocolate eggs are made with milk and cocoa. The mixture is then poured into molds).
4. To avoid liability
Do you remember when the airline canceled your flight? It is highly unlikely that they would say:
We have canceled your flight…even though that's what happened. By using the passive voice (Your flight has been cancelled), they are avoiding taking responsibility for the cancellation, hoping that you will direct your frustration elsewhere. This also happens on the signs that indicate standards:
Smoking is not permitted… which really means “We do not allow smoking.”
Or also in statements like:
Mistakes were made. You don't have to look at who committed them, right?
The good news is that the structure of the passive is very simple: the important thing is to know how to conjugate the verb “to be”.
The basic structure is: subject + (to be) + past participle.
It is possible to use the passive voice also with perfect tenses such as the present perfect continuous, the past perfect continuous and the future perfect, although much less frequent, and it can even be confusing for the reader:
The hotel had been being built for over three years (in Spanish this phrase would be translated as “El hotel had been constructing…”).
In English, it would probably be much clearer expressing it with an active phrase:
They had been building the hotel for over three years.
We generally think that the passive belongs to a more formal register although, in reality, it depends on how it is used. A formal use of the passive voice is when we make general statements with structures such as “it is thought” or “it is believed”:
It is believed that the singer will release a new album next month, which is equivalent to “Everyone believes that…”.
It is hoped that the new hotel will be a success, that is, “We hope…”.
But it can also be used in a more informal way:
I need to get my hair cut; Notice that here “to get” is used instead of the verb “to be”.
In this case, the structure “to get something done” has been chosen, which is another form of passive, to indicate that someone is going to cut your hair (probably a hairdresser), instead of doing it yourself.
It is important that you conjugate the verb “to be” correctly and make sure that the past participle is correct, especially in the (numerous) irregular verbs:
The class was being taught by a new teacher.
-The class was taught by a new teacher. NO
-The class was being taught by a new teacher. SI
Remember that when we want to add the agent plugin we use “by”, not “for”:
This song was written by Beyoncé.
-This song was written for Beyonce. NO
-This song was written by Beyonce. SI
In the first sentence, someone has written a song and dedicated it to Beyoncé, while in the second it is Beyoncé who wrote the song.
Do not use the agent complement when it is not necessary, or when it does not add anything important to the sentence:
The Sagrada Familia is still under construction.
-They are still building the Sagrada Familia. SI
-The Sagrada Familia is still being built by them. NO
-The Sagrada Familia is still being built. SI
A verb that always goes in the passive in English is “to be born”:
I was born in the sixties.
-I was born in the 60s. NO
-I was born in the 60s. SI