Why do we need the passive voice?
Sentences in English can be written or said in two different ways: you might use the active or passive voice.
In the active voice, you show that the subject of a sentence is very important. You want to emphasize that the thing or person is responsible for the action.
In this case, you always put the subject at the beginning of a sentence.
The active voice is the most common way to compose sentences in English.
Let’s have a look at the example:
Earthquakes under the ocean cause tsunamis.
The passive voice changes the focus of a sentence. The subject becomes the object in the passive structure.
We use the passive voice when:
- We are not interested who did an action.
- We don’t know who did it.
- We want to sound more formal.
- We want to get better marks in our exams:)
Let’s compare two sentences:
Earthquakes under the ocean cause tsunamis.
Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes under the ocean.
As you can see, the subject of the first sentence became the object of the second one.
There is another example:
The suspect was arrested on Friday night.
In this case, we know that only the police can arrest somebody. We don’t need to mention who did this action because it’s very clear.
If we want to add more information and mention an agent or person who did the action, we can do it by using “by”.
The research was done by Elsevier.
If you don’t know who did an action, you use the passive voice.
Let’s have a look at the example:
The cathedral was built two centuries ago.
Obviously, you don’t know who built this cathedral.
Remember that you can use any verb tense in passive structures.
Our ideas about the future of agriculture will be explained at the next conference.
The new frame was discussed and proposed as a new therapeutic approach.
Both examples sound formal, don’t they?
