Active and passive voice

1. Active/passive voice

How to avoid going into
details….

2.

3.

Active voice is mainly used to refer to a subject that
completed the action we are interested:
The hunter killed the lion.
However, if we need to highlight the mere fact of a
particular instance occurred, then we use passive voice:
The lion was killed by the Hunter.

4.

How do we form sentences with passive voice?
The formula is simple:
Be + V3 (past participle)
be used, be needed, be required, be called off, etc.
The first part of this structure carries grammatical meaning:
The lion WAS killed by the Hunter.
• WAS indicates that this action happened in the past.
• KILLED indicates what exactly happened in the past. We understand what a dreadful
instance occurred.

5.

We can indeed point out who or what completed the action using different prepositions.
Once we need to indicate a person or organisation or anything that literally caused
something to happen, we use BY:
The lion was killed BY the Hunter.
In this case, we can clearly see who killed the lion.
If we want to indicate an object that was used to complete the action, we use WITH :
The lion was killed with a bullet/rifle.
A Rifle or a bullet cannot kill, it's human beings who use it for such purpose, which is why
we can't use BY...use WITH and that will sound way better.

6.

We also use passive voice with phrasal verbs:
The meeting was called off (due to some changes in the director's schedule)
Please, note that some verbs used in the passive need TO infinitive:
• I was supposed to come home earlier today, but my train was delayed for 1 hour.
• I was required to take a copy of my passport.