Passive Voice

Level B2 · Passive Voice

Use the passive when the action matters more than who does it — because the doer is unknown, unimportant, obvious from context, or you simply want to focus on the receiver of the action rather than the doer. Compare: Someone stole my bike (active, doer named) and My bike was stolen (passive, doer unknown or irrelevant). Passive voice is also common in formal, scientific, and news writing, where the process or result matters more than who performed it: The bridge was built in 1889.

Passive = a form of be + past participle. The tense sits entirely on be — the past participle itself never changes for tense:

• Present simple passive: am/is/are + past participle — English is spoken here; The windows are cleaned every week.
• Past simple passive: was/were + past participle — The letter was written yesterday; The windows were cleaned last week.
• Modal passive: modal + be + past participle — The car must be washed; This form should be signed; Mistakes can be corrected.
• To name the doer — only when it matters — add by + agent at the end: The novel was written by Tolstoy.

A related structure, the causative, uses have or get + object + past participle to say that someone else does something for you, arranged by you — not that it simply happens to you: I had my hair cut (I arranged for a hairdresser to cut it); I got my car repaired (I arranged for a mechanic to fix it). It looks like a passive — object + past participle — but the subject is actively arranging the action, which a true passive never requires.

The most common mistake is dropping be and leaving only the past participle, as if it were a normal past-tense verb: The window broken yesterday is wrong — every passive tense needs be, matching the sentence's tense: is/are (present), was/were (past), modal + be (modal) — The window was broken yesterday. A closely related error with irregular verbs: using the simple past instead of the past participle after be, like was wrote instead of was written (write → wrote → written).

Look for an unnamed or unknown doer, a by + agent phrase at the end (by Shakespeare, by the storm), a formal or scientific tone (it is believed that…, is thought to be…), news headlines about events without naming who caused them (Two arrested after robbery), and have/get + noun + past participle for services arranged for you (a haircut, a repair, a delivery).

Practice

Present, Past & Modal Passive · Causative, By-Agent & Mixed Practice