Active Voice

Voices are of two types, active and passive. Voices are the main reason one can describe an action performed by the subject in multiple ways. Since English grammar is a crucial scoring section in several competitive exams, candidates should understand voices thoroughly to score well. Forms of verbs, types of sentences, and tenses play a major role in converting an active voice into a passive voice and vice-versa. 

This chapter will enable you to learn what is a voice, active and passive voices, and their differences. It will also elaborate on why an active voice is important in writing and how to convert it into a passive one with examples.

What is Voice?

When a verb expresses the relation between an action and a subject, it is called a voice. Based on it, we can divide the voices into two categories.

1. Active voice
2. Passive voice

What is an Active Voice?

When the subject does an action the verb describes, we consider it to be in active voice. In simple words, we can describe an active voice in the following format:

S + V + O

Where,

S: Subject

V: Verb

O: Object

For example, Ram ate an apple.

Here,

Ram is the subject

Eating is the action

Apple is the object

A line may have more than these three keywords, but the usage of these words remains the same. For example,

Ram is a school student who ate an apple in the park.

The above line expresses the action more in-depth, but the subject, action, and object remain the same. Also, the object’s existence is not essential in active voice. For example,

Ram ate.

Why is Active Voice Important While Writing?

In the writing world, an active voice is a norm. Even though we can observe passive voice in many cases, the active voice finds favour because;

• The active voice consists of fewer words
• It is more direct and easy to understand
• The active voice highlights the subject
• Articles written in an active voice get more engagement
• It is quicker to write and understand

Active to Passive Voice

Passive voice expresses the verb when the subject is acted upon. It is in the form of: 

S + HV + V3 + the doer

S: the subject

HV: the helping verb

V3: the verb in 3rd form

The doer

According to this rule, the example discussed above takes the form of:

An apple was eaten by Ram.

Here,

‘an apple’ is the object

‘was’ is the helping verb

‘eaten’ is the verb in V3 form

‘by Ram’ is the doer

Some pronouns used in the active and passive voice are as below.

Let us learn what a sentence will become in passive from active with the verb ‘eat’ in the following forms of tense.

Let’s see some examples.

Let us see some interrogative sentences.

Difference between Active and Passive Voices