passive voice and how to use passive voice

My computer was stolen.

In the example above, the focus is on the fact that my computer was stolen. I do not know, however, who did it.

Sometimes a statement in passive is more polite than active voice, let's have a look at the following example:

A mistake was made.

In the above exammple, the focus is on the fact that a mistake was made, not blame who made the mistake.

Form of Passive

Subject + finite form of to be + Past Participle (3rd column of irregular verbs). For example:

My laptop was repaired.

When rewriting active sentences in passive voice, you should keep the following in your mind:

1. The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence.

2. The finite form of the verb is changed (to be + past participle).

3. The subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped).

Passive, or passive verb, refers more generally to verbs using this construction and the passages in which they are used. In English, a passive verb is periphrastic; that is, it does not have a one-word form, but consists of an auxiliary verb plus the past participle of the transitive verb. The auxiliary verb usually is a form of the verb to be, but other auxiliary verbs, such as get, are sometimes used. The passive voice can be used in any number of tenses. The process of changing an active verb into a passive one is called passivization. Passivization is a valence-decreasing process, and it is sometimes referred to as a detranzitivizing process, because it changes transitive verbs into intransitives.

If you need more info about passive voice, please have a look at our Grammar manual