he accepted the assignment change the voice

• Active and Passive voice

Active and Passive voice: Words come together to form a sentence and these sentences can be formed in more than one way. The way these sentences are made make a lot of difference in writing and we are going to learn all about that in this chapter. One thing to note here is that no matter what the structure of the sentence is, the meaning of the sentence does not change. That’s actually a very important point to remember throughout this chapter. Keep it in mind. Let’s dive straight into the realm of Active and Passive voice.

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Active and Passive Voice:

You know that every subject has a subject , a verb , and an object. A subject is an agent who performs the verb on the object. Let’s understand this with the help of an example:

• I swim in the ocean. –  I  is the subject,  swim  is the verb, and  ocean  is the object.
• My mom plays violin. –  My mom  is the subject,  plays  is the verb, and  violin  is the object.

Active voice: When a subject is directly acting on the object, the sentence is written in Active voice.

Passive voice: When the object is acted upon by the subject, the sentence is written in Passive voice.

Learn more about Verb here in detail.

In both the above sentences, the meaning remains the same and only the structure is what that changes. Usually, the structure or sequence of the subject, verb, and object expressed in the active voice sentence gets reversed in the passive voice of the same sentence. To understand the difference, just focus on how the subject and object change the structure of the sentences in the table below:

Now you must have gotten some idea of how the active and passive voice sentences look like. Note again how the meaning has stayed the same throughout. You may use some different words in situations where you must. But this conversion from one voice to another voice is really simple when you know a few rules that we will chalk out for you here:

Browse more Topics under Transformation Sentences

• Parts of Speech
• Reported Speech
• Types of Sentences

Structure of Active and Passive voice:

Active voice: Subject + Verb + Object Passive voice: Object + Verb + Subject

You must have seen that the verb form changes when you switch from active to passive voice. Now verbs used are of two kinds: the main and the auxiliary verbs. Usually, an auxiliary verb is accompanied by the main verb. The auxiliary verb like be, do or have shows the tense or mood of the verb. For example, in the sentence “I have finished my scuba diving course in the Havelock Islands”, finished is the main verb and have is the auxiliary verb.

As a thumb rule, Passive voice sentences always take the third form of the verb also called the past participle form of the verb (example- eat, ate, eaten- eaten is the third form of a verb). Notice this being used in the sentence above in the table: “The strawberry pie was eaten by me.”

So the usage of the main verb is pretty simple to convert. It’s the auxiliary verb that we need to understand further. Let’s get into it:

Rules for changing Active voice to Passive voice:

• Simply exchange the places of the subject and the object. The subject should become the object and vice-e-versa while changing a sentence from Active to Passive voice or reverse.
• Active voice: She bought a new car . (She  is the subject and a new car is an object.)
• Passive voice: A new car was bought by her . ( A new car is a subject and her is the object.)

Learn more about Active Voice and Passive Voice here in detail.

2. Always blindly convert the main verb into its past participle or third form while converting from active to passive voice. To remind you what the third form of a verb looks like, let’s look at a few examples:

• Active voice: Bhaanu wrote a book on gun violence.
• Passive voice: A book on gun violence was written by Bhaanu.

3. Use the word “by” before the subject in the passive sentence. For example:

• Active voice: My brother sang a song.
• Passive voice: A song was sung by my brother.

4. Change of tense of the auxiliary word: Now when you change the verb form of the main verb, the tense of the auxiliary also changes accordingly. Let’s see this with the help of a few examples:

• Present tense –
• Active voice: Sun rises from the east.
• Passive voice: East is where the sun rises from.
• Past tense –
• Active voice: She walked my dog home.
• Passive voice: My dog was walked home by her.
• Future tense –
• Active voice: Sheena will do the craft work.
• Passive voice: Craft work will be done by Sheena.

5. Sometimes you may completely omit the subject from the passive voice if the idea you are trying to convey is clear. You just have to take a judgement call for that. For example:

• Active voice: Distance is measured in kilometers.
• Passive voice: Kilometres is a measurement unit for distance.

6. Words like “with” or “to” are also used in passive voice. You may recall that we use “by” quite frequently in an active voice to passive voice conversion.

• Active voice: I know her.
• Passive voice: She is known to me.
• Active voice: Love fills my heart.
• Passive voice: My heart is filled with love.

Now test yourself by solving these Problems and Practice Questions on Active and Passive Voice.

That pretty much sums up our chapter of Active and Passive voice. We recommend you pick up a few sentences below, identify whether they are in active or passive voice and convert them to the other form.

• I love my music teacher.
• This painting is done by me.
• She cast a beautiful spell on me.
• I want to go home after school.

Go ahead and enjoy your sentences and their marvels of structures. Have fun with grammar!

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Transformation of Sentences

37 responses to “active and passive voice”.

Simple but very nice explanation and helpfull too.

What is the voice change of ” I have endeavoured to understand the fundamental truths.”

ENDEAVOUR HAS BEEN MADE BY ME TO UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH.

The fundamental truths have been endeavoured to be understood by me

The fundamental truths to understand had been endeavoured by him

The fundamental truths have endeavoured to be understood by me

The fundamental truths has been understood endeavoured to by me

How to change the voice for the following sentence – the books will be received by tomorrow

By whom? We need a subject. If the subject was for example “The library”, then the sentence in active voice would read “The library will receive the books by tomorrow”.

You will receive the books by tomorrow.

Tomorrow you will receive the book

You will receive the books (by) tomorrow.

Someone will receive the books by tomorrow

Tomorrow will be receive the books

HE WILL RECEIVE THE BOOKS BY TOMORROW.

By tomorrow the books will be received.

By tomorrow, you will receive the books

Tomorrow received the book

Change this “take right and turn left” into passive voice

Let the right be taken amd left be turned

‘amd’ is “and” 😅

You are advised to take right and turn left

Very helpful information thanks

Very well explained all basics that can lead to gain further knowledge very easily

What is in this box change into passive

what is the voice change of,” some people think nuclear is the best, because it doesnt add to global warming “….

Brilliant stuff!! – Rishabh

A kite was made by Ravi . What is the active form of this statement???

how to change into passive this sentence “when they were shifting the patient to the I.C.U.,he died

change into passive voice this sentence “when they were shifting the patient to I.C.U.,he died .

May you tell us tense conversion in voice.

Sentences without action like…. Jim is a doctor . Is it active or passive and if any how would you decide without having a main verb ?

It is named after the name of its principal tree ‘sundari'(passive)

how can ocean be object 🙄???

They made a bag

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Changing Passive to Active Voice

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This handout will explain the difference between active and passive voice in writing. It gives examples of both, and shows how to turn a passive sentence into an active one. Also, it explains how to decide when to choose passive voice instead of active.

If you want to change a passive-voice sentence to active voice, find the agent in a "by the..." phrase, or consider carefully who or what is performing the action expressed in the verb. Make that agent the subject of the sentence, and change the verb accordingly. Sometimes you will need to infer the agent from the surrounding sentences which provide context.

If you want to change an active-voice sentence to passive voice, consider carefully who or what is performing the action expressed in the verb, and then make that agent the object of a by the... phrase. Make what is acted upon the subject of the sentence, and change the verb to a form of be + past participle. Including an explicit by the... phrase is optional.

This passive voice contains a by the... phrase. Removing the by the... phrase and reworking the sentence will give it the active voice.

Image Caption: Making "most of the class" the subject of the sentence moves the action of the sentence onto the class, and shifts the sentence from passive into active voice.

The agent is not explicitly stated, but it is most likely researchers. Making the agent the subject of the sentence will allow you to use the active voice.

This sentence now uses the active voice because the agent (the researchers) are now performing the action as the sentence subject.

The CIA director and his close advisors are the agent of change in this sentence, but they are not the subject. Making the agent the subject will transform the sentence into a more concise, active voice phrase.

This sentence now uses the active voice because the agent (the CIA director and his close advisors) is performing the action as the sentence subject.

The agent is not specified in this sentence.

This sentence now uses the active voice because the agent (we) is the subject of the sentence.

This active voice sentence's agent is the presiding officer, which is the subject.

Changing the sentence subject from the agent (the presiding officer) to the object of the verb (the committee's recommendation) and adding a by the...phrase transforms the sentence into the passive voice.

This sentence includes the agent (the leaders) as the subject performing the action of the verb.

This sentence now uses the passive voice because the subject has been changed from the agent (the leaders) to the object of the verb (a fair resolution).

The scientists are the agent performing the verb's action in this active voice sentence.

This passive voice sentence no longer specifies the agent (scientists) and now uses the passive voice because the verb's object (traces of ice) is now the subject.