Study the pair of sentences and determine who is the doer and receiver of the action in each sentence.
My mother read a prayer aloud.
The prayer was read aloud by my mother.
You will now learn about the voice of verbs. The voice is the form a verb takes indicating whether its subject acts or is acted upon.
When a verb is in active voice, its subject acts or does something. In the following example, the subject is boxed and the verbs are in bold. Notice that the subject in the sentence is acting out the verbs. A verb in the active voice is always a transitive verb.
| ACTIVE VOICE The mother | read a prayer aloud. |
|---|
| ↑ Subject as doer of the action |
|---|
When a verb is in passive voice, its subject receives the action or is acted upon. The passive form is often indicated by helping verbs (am, is, are, was, were, been) used with another verb. The word by is another clue to identifying the passive form. In the following example, the subject is boxed and the verb is underlined.
| PASSIVE VOICE The prayer | was read aloud by the mother. |
|---|
| ↑ Subject as doer of the action |
|---|
It will be easier to remember that verbs in the passive voice are formed by:
Form of to be + the past participle = passive voice
Examples
Active voice: read
Passive voice: was read
To change a verb from passive to active voice, make the subject of the passive verb the object of the active verb. The person or thing performing the action then becomes the subject of the new sentence.
Examples
| Subject | |
|---|---|
| Passive: The essay | was written by Leopoldo Serrano. |
| Direct Object | |
|---|---|
| ACTIVE: Leopoldo Serrano | wrote the essay. |
