![]() So making the recipient of the action ( Cleo) the subject of the sentence, using the passive voice, and tucking the performer of the action ( the experience) after the action as the object of the preposition by makes sense. ![]() But the thing the sentence most urgently wants us to know is that a person, Cleo, had an important thing happen to them. In this case, we know what brought about the action: It was the experience of traveling alone in South America. The important thing to remember is that passive verbs are used when the thing acted on is more important than the thing doing the action or when you are stating what something is.Cleo was transformed by the experience of traveling alone in Latin America. Like most things in the English language, this is something that gets easier with repetition. If the speaker is trying to express blame, then the first sentence would be better to use in this situation. The second is softer and gentler, because it does not pinpoint ‘you’ as the person responsible. The first sentence, which uses active voice, is more direct and confrontational. Sentences that use it are often tighter and more direct than sentences that use passive voice.īoth sentences are correct, but they express different thoughts. In that case, active voice does have advantages. ![]() Other sentences, however, are interchangeable. However, some sentences require the passive voice, such as statements of being, because it only has an indirect object and not a direct object. Native speakers are often told to avoid passive voice as much as possible. You’d be more likely to find the first sentence in an article about Egyptians, and you’d probably find the second in an article about lemonade, because the subject of the article is more important in those cases. In the first, the Egyptians are more important and in the second, lemonade is. “Lemonade was invented by the Egyptians.” In the second, the murdered man is more important. In the first sentence, the unknown person who murdered the man is more important, so it is placed first. In other cases, a different part of the sentence may be more important. When you want to describe what a thing is instead of what it does, then passive voice is better to use. However, there are some advantages to using passive voice. Unless the sandwich is more important, it doesn’t make sense to use the passive voice for this sentence or for the sentences above. It also puts more importance on the sandwich than the person eating it. Not only does it use more words, but it’s awkward to say out loud. That sentence is better to use than its passive voice counterpart. In most cases, active voice is better to use. The verb working with the form of ‘to be’ is called a passive participle.Īctive voice uses any other verb to describe what the thing is doing.īecause these sentences have both a direct object and an indirect object, they can be put in passive voice by flipping the objects and adding a form of ‘to be’. That means that it changes the thing that is being acted on – the direct object – instead of the thing doing the action – the indirect object. Because it is in passive form, it will change the direct object instead of the indirect object. Sometimes, a sentence in passive form will use another verb to change the meaning of the sentence. The forms of the verb ‘to be’ are ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘were’, ‘being’, ‘been’, ‘am’ and ‘are’. Passive voice uses the different forms of the verb ‘to be’ or ‘is’ to describe what a thing is, or a statement of being. Passive voice and active voice are two ways of using verbs.
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