Active and Passive Voice

What is the Voice of a Sentence?

Every sentence has a voice that expresses the correspondence between the sentence’s subject and its verb. It means that the relation between the subject and the verb determines the voice of the verb. The voice of the verb tells us how the action of the subject takes place in the sentence. Our daily communication is incomplete without using these sentences or is meaningless. 

Here is an example of voices in a sentence: 

1. Varun opens the windows. 
2. The window is opened by Varun.

In the first sentence, the word opens shows that the subject is doing the task. However, in the following sentence, you will see the word opened makes the verb passive. We see that the window becomes the subject which is opened or acted upon. 

Active Voice and Passive Voice

We use active and passive voices in our lives every day. This article aims to help you learn the concept of active voice and passive voice in detail. 

Active Voice

When the subject performs an action, the verb is in active voice. It is direct and immediate, which actively conveys who the sentence’s subject is. You can immediately understand who the subject is and the object in the sentence.

Example sentences of active voice are: 

• Did the principal call you? 
• The sun rises from the east. 
• I will call you today.

When you use an active voice, it is more direct and informative. The subject in the active voice takes responsibility for the verb in the sentence. It is more engaging to the other person as they can absorb the information faster and effortlessly in the active voice. Thus, writing experts consider active voice sentences as the most preferred choice.

Passive Voice

On the other hand, passive voice is when the subject receives the action conveyed by the verb in a sentence. It is used mainly when the subject or person is acted upon by the verb that is missing or unknown or is preceded with ‘by’. Thus, the verb in passive voice is acted upon.

Examples of passive voice sentences are: 

• Food is cooked. 
• The tire was changed by Sudha. 
• The building was destroyed by the fire.

When you use passive voice, you will sound neutral and have an objective tone in your sentence. The sentences are more non-confrontational when you are using passive voice. Additionally, these sentences are the best to use when the subject of the action is unknown or unimportant. 

Active voice and Passive voice: Examples

Everyone uses Active and passive voices in their daily conversations. However, the verb and subject in these cases change when you change a sentence from active voice to passive voice. Here are a few examples of sentences in active and passive voice: 

Example 1: Active voice: They will watch a race tonight. 

Passive voice: The race will be watched by them tonight. 

In the active voice, ‘they’ is the sentence’s subject and ‘watch’ is the verb. However, when you change the passive voice, ‘race’ is the subject and ‘watched’ is the verb. 

Example 2: Active voice: I will wash the car every Saturday. 

Passive voice: The car will be washed by me every Saturday. 

I’ is the sentence’s subject in active voice, and ‘wash’ is the verb. When you change it to passive voice, ‘car’ is the subject, and the verb is ‘washed’.

Conclusion

When a speaker is saying something, it is usually in either of the two types of voices: active voice or passive voice. Therefore, it is essential to know about these two voices and how they are used in sentences. If you know how and when they are used, you will be able to communicate better in the right situations.