Voice Change Rules: Active to Passive Voice with Examples

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Would you like to learn voice change rules: active to passive voice or passive to active voice changing in English grammar? Changing Voice is an essential part of transformation of sentences. Here, we would like to discuss the easier rules and structures of changing voices with examples and exercises.

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If you are a student of school, college or university, you must have clear knowledge on voice changing in order to answer different types of grammatical questions in your academic exams. If you try to learn the rules of voice changing from a traditional grammar books, you will see a lot of number of rules and you might get confused with all of them.

This is the basic point of our voice change lesson in which we have tried to summarize all rules in a single structure and it will help you remember all rules of active and passive voices without any confusion.

First of all, you have to learn the form of active and passive voice before going to the rules. But make sure that you have clear idea about the classifications of persons and all tenses in English grammar.

Without having proper knowledge and clear idea on these lessons, you will not be able to understand the structure and rules of voice change properly.

What is Active Voice and Passive Voice?

Voice indicates the manner of writing a sentence which shows its subject is the ‘doer’ or ‘doee’ of the action expressed by the verb in that sentence. Basically, voice shows us the condition of subject in that sentence. It tells us that whether the subject is powerful or powerless in case of the action in that sentence.

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Voice can be classified into 2 classes: 

  1. Active Voice
  2. Passive Voice
active and passive voice
Active Voice and Passive Voice

Follow these two sentences below to understand the forms of active and passive voices:

  • Active: I make a basket for my business.
  • Passive: A basket is made by me for my business.

Well, now learn these two words:  ”Doer and Doee”

‘Doer’ indicates the person who acts and is powerful in a sentence.
‘Doee’ indicates the person or the thing which is influenced by the ‘doer’ in a sentence and it is powerless

  • When the subject is ‘doer’ in a sentence, it is called active voice.
  • When the subject is ‘doee’ in a sentence, it is called passive voice.

Notice these sentences:  
Active: I am writing a report on pollution.

(Here, ‘I’ is the ‘doer’ of the verb ‘writing’ and it is subject, so this is active sentence.)

Passive: A report on pollution is being written by me.

(Here, ‘a report on pollution’ is the ‘doee’ of the verb ‘writing’ and it is unable or powerless to write anything but this is subject in this sentence. So, it is passive sentence.)

Voice Change Rules

Now, I want to show you a phrase that will tell us about each elements of active and passive voice changing process. Here it is…

Have a look on this phrase: TSOEMvS

Voice Change Structure: TSOEMvS
Voice Change Structure: TSOEMvS

It looks like a mathematical theory, right?

Read the explanations below based on this logic and you will understand the secret of it:

Explanation of TSOEMvS

  • T= Tense marking – (What is the tense of the sentence?)
  • S= Subject marking – (Which part of the sentence is subject?)
  • O= Object marking – (Which part of the sentence is object?)
  • E= Extra marking – (Which part of the sentence is extra or adjunct and how many are they?)
  • Mv= Main Verb marking – (Which part of the sentence is main verb?)
  • S= Sentence category – (What is the kind of the sentence such as :assertive/negative/interrogative?)

Now see how we mark these elements in a sentence and you have to mark these elements from each sentence, you want to change into active or passive form.

Ihave takenmy breakfastjust now.
SubjectPresent PerfectObjectExtra
Voice Example

So, this voice change structure: ‘TSOEMvS’ is used here to make things easier for you. Memorizing this phrase and its elements, you can easily remember all of these required elements to be changed one by one if they exist in a sentence.

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Before changing voice of a sentence from active to passive, you have to look for these elements and mark them in a sentence. All elements might not be present in a sentence but you have to look for the available elements.

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Now see the master structure of changing voice and you can note it as a passive voice structure. It will tell you why we are searching or marking the above elements in a sentence before changing voices.

Structure of Voice Changing

(Object will be replaced by Subject+ auxiliary verb according to the tense+ past participle form of the main verb+ by+ Subject will be replaced by Object+ extra)

Let’s have an example:

Active: I have taken my breakfast just now.

Passive: My breakfast has been taken by me just now.

My breakfasthas beentakenby mejust now.
Object will be replaced by Subjectauxiliary verb according to the tensepast participle form of the main verbSubject  will be replaced by Objectextra
Voice Changing Structure

Voice Change: Affirmative Sentence

Structure: (Object will be replaced by Subject+ auxiliary verb according to the tense+ past participle form of the main verb+ by+ Subject will be replaced by Object+ extra)

For Examples,

Active: Your friend likes my job because of privacy.
Passive: My job is liked by your friend because of privacy .

Active: Most of the people are making this shield for their protection.
Passive: This shield is being made by most of the people for their protection.

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I hope now you have understood why it is important to recognize and mark those elements: TSOEMvS in a sentence. Without marking them, you will not be able to change their positions or forms during voice changing in a sentence.

Now, you have learned the basic structure of changing voices for affirmative sentences. In case of negative and interrogative sentences, it’s not too much different or difficult. Let’s learn them too.

Voice Changing: Negative Sentence

Structure: (Object will be replaced by Subject+ auxiliary verb according to the tense +not + past participle form of the main verb+ by+ Subject will be replaced by Object+ extra)

For Example,

Active: I do not make any illegal product here.
Passive: Any illegal product is not made by me here.

Voice Change: Interrogative Sentence

Structure: (auxiliary verb according to the tense + Object will be replaced by Subject +the extended part of auxiliary verb+ past participle form of the main verb +by+ Subject will be replaced by Object+ extra)

Example:
Active: Are you writing a letter now?
Passive: Is a letter being written by you?

Subjective & Objective Forms in Changing Voices

I asked you in the beginning that you have to learn different forms and classifications of persons such as subjective form, objective form to change active voices into passive voices . Because, when you will change voice from active to passive, you have to change the position of the subject and object too.

If the subject is “I” in an active sentence, it will be “me” in passive sentence because you are placing subject in the place of object. So, you have to use the objective form of the pronoun “I” which is “me”.

Let’s have an example:

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Active: I have taken my breakfast just now.
Passive: My breakfast has been taken by me just now.

Note: You can see the subject ”I” in active sentence is placed as an object in passive sentence and “me” as an objective form of the subject “I” is used. It’s not too much difficult to remember these persons and their forms.

Here is a simple chart on the subjective forms and objective forms of persons in English.

List of Persons: Subjective & Objective Forms

Subjective formsObjective  forms
Ime/myself
Weus/ourselves
Youyou/yourself
Youyou/yourselves
He/She/Ithim/her/it/itself/himself/herself
Theythey/themselves
List of Persons

Tense and Auxiliary Verbs in Changing Voice

Did you notice one thing?  

I am using several different forms of auxiliary verbs while changing voices in different tenses. Yes, this is the point, you have to concentrate attentively. Every element of a sentence in active form such as ‘subject, object, extension’ is changing its position while transforming into passive form.

So, we are getting most of the words of our passive voice from active form. But, the auxiliary verb is something which doesn’t exist in active form. We have to know the usages of auxiliary verbs based on the tense of an active sentence. So, the tense of the active sentence will tell us about the form of auxiliary verb, we have to use for passive form.

You have to learn the list of auxiliary verbs based on the specific tense. Here is a quick chart on the list of auxiliary verbs based on tenses. Following this chart you can easily remember that which auxiliary verb should be used for which tense.

List of Auxiliary Verbs based on Tenses

List of Auxiliary Verbs for Passive Voice
List of Auxiliary Verbs for Passive Voice

I hope now you are clear about the element: “T= Tense marking – (What is the tense of the sentence?)”

This is why, you have recognize the tense of an active voice. To change an active voice into passive voice, you have to mark the tense of that sentence properly.

Now, I am giving the examples of the changed auxiliary verbs on all tenses in English. It will help you understand the usages of auxiliary verbs based on different forms of tenses. Read these examples carefully matching with the chart given above. Remember one thing, without studying examples, you can never understand or use a structure or rule properly.

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Voice Change Examples

Indefinite Tense: Active to Passive

Robin plays cricket in this field.Cricket is played by Robin in this field.
playedwas played
will playwill be played
Voice of Indefinite Tense

Continues Tense: Active to Passive

Robin is writing a letter now.A letter is being written by Robin now.
was writingwas being written
will be writingwill be being written
Voice of Continues Tense

Perfect Tense: Active to Passive

Robin has broken a glass during lunch.A glass has been broken by robin during lunch.
had brokenhad been broken
will have brokenwill have been broken
Voice of Perfect Tense

Perfect Continues Tense: Active to Passive

Robin has been making baskets since morning.Baskets have been being made by robin since morning.
had been makinghad been being made
will have been makingwill have been being made
Voice of Perfect Continues Tense

Conclusion on Active to Passive Voice Changing

This is all about changing active and passive voices and now you know about its rules, elements, and structure. You can find a lot of exercises and worksheets on voice transformation here and test your skill on active and passive transformation.

If you want to study more transformation based grammar lessons, you can check out those here:

There are some advanced and exceptional voice change rules and I will update those here too. However, if you follow the basic method and process of voice changing, you can easily remember the structures and rules of active and passive voice and change them as needed.

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