BY N O U R C H E R I F

ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACTIVE AND PASSIVE?

ACTIVE VOICE

• In an active sentence, the subject is the doer of the action, for example:• Jim is writing an essay.• Sarah called the police.• Courtney watched a movie.

PASSIVE VOICE

• In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action, for example:

An essay was written by Jim. (Who wrote the essay?, Jim did.)The police was called by Sarah. ( Who called the police?, Sarah did.)A movie was watched by Courtney. ( Who watched the movie?, Courtney did.)

HOW TO FORM PASSIVE AND ACTIVE VOICES?

FORMING PASSIVE VOICE FROM AN ACTIVE VOICE

• To form a PASSIVE voice from an active voice, please follow these steps:• 1- Identify the subject of the sentence.• 2-Identify the verb of the sentence• 3-Identify the direct object of the sentence.• Example:• Mary ate an apple.

Subject verb object

HERE HOW IT WORKS

• After identifying the different parts of a sentence (subject, verb, object). the following is a diagram that will guide you to form your passive sentence:

• Mary ate an apple.

• An apple was eaten by Mary.

• What do you notice?

• The subject of the active sentence became the agent of the passive voice introduced with the particle by.• The object of the active voice became the subject

of the passive voice.

• What about the verb?

• Let’s look at the example again:

• Mary ate an apple.

• An apple was eaten by Mary.

• What do you notice?

• The auxiliary “to be” was added.• The auxiliary was conjugated in the same tense

as the main verb of the active sentence.• The past participle of the main verb was added.

HOW TO FORM AN ACTIVE SENTENCE FROM A PASSIVE SENTENCE

• Forming the active voice from the passive voice is totally the opposite.• In order to form the active voice from a passive

voice, we need to:• Identify the subject of the passive sentence• Identify the verb and the tense of the auxiliary in

the passive sentence.• Identify the agent (usually introduced with “by”)

THEN…

• Take out the particle by• Make the agent of the passive sentence the

subject of the active sentence.• Make the subject of the passive sentence the

object of the active sentence• Conjugate the main verb of the active sentence in

the same tense of the auxiliary of the passive sentence.

EXAMPLE

Simple past

An apple was eaten by Mary.

Mary ate an apple.

Simple past

QUESTIONS?

NOW, LET’S PRACTICE!

• Please take out your handouts and let’s begin with the first activity.