Active&Passive voice in present and past simple

​Passive Voice in

Present and Past Simple

​Active sentences vs passive sentence

​In an active sentence, the subject does the action.

We clean my car. ​

In a passive sentence we focus on the object, so the subject of the sentence receives the action.

My car is cleaned (by us).

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​Forming passive sentences

​In a passive sentence we want to focus on the object (the car) , so the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence. Then the verb changes into the passive form

(am, is, are +past participle).

My car is cleaned by us.

Subject + Passive Verb + Agent (by...)

​Using Passive Voice

We use passive voice​ when:

• you don't know who did the action

The rubbish is collected.

• you're interested in the action, rather than the person who did it

The road was repaired.

• you don't want to say who did something

Mistakes were made.

• you want to give an instruction, without being too bossy or direct

Dogs must be kept on a lead.

​If the verb in the active sentence is in the past simple form, the verb 'to be' in the passive verb is 'was/were'.

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​Past Simple Passive

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