Active to Passive Voice Rules and Charts

Here you can have simple rules, charts, and other materials required for changing active to passive voice.

Rules and Chart of Active to Passive Voice

  1. Generally, 8 tenses are changed into passive voice.
  2. Present perfect continuous, past perfect continuous, future continuous, and future perfect continuous are not changed into passive voice.
  3. The subject is put in place of the object and the object is placed in the place of the subject.
  4. Generally ‘by’ is used before the new object.
  5. Always 3rd form of the verb is used.
  6. Helping verbs are changed according to the following chart.
  7. Chart of helping verbs used in active voice and passive voice.  
TENSE ACTIVE PASSIVE
Present Indefinite Do, does or (s, es) Is, are, am
Present Continuous Is, are, am Is being, am being, are being
Present Perfect Has, have Has been, has been
Past Indefinite Did or  2nd form Was, were
Past Continuous Was, were Was being, were being
Past Perfect Had Had been
Future Indefinite Will, shall Shall be, will be
Future Perfect Will have, shall have Will have been, shall have been
Subject Object Possessive Possessive Reflexive
I me my mine myself
We us our ours ourselves
You you your yours yourself /yourselves
He him his his himself
She her her hers herself
They them their theirs themselves
It it its its itself
One one ones ones oneself
Table of Pronouns

Here are links to 5 video lectures on ‘Active to Passive’ and ‘Passive to Active voice’ in which you will learn all rules with examples.

All learners are advised to watch the videos for better understanding.

Examples:

Active: He killed a tiger.

Passive: A tiger was killed by him.

Active: Raman wrote a letter with his new pen.

Passive: A letter was written by Raman with his new pen.

Active: The teacher taught the students English Grammar.

Passive: The students were taught English Grammar by the teacher.

OR English Grammar was taught to students by the teacher.

Rules: Active to Passive Voice in Interrogative sentences

1. If the active voice is in an interrogative sentence, the passive voice should be in an interrogative sentence.

Example: Active: Did you not pay your electricity bill?

Passive: Was your electricity bill not paid by you?

Active: Why are you not doing your work?

Passive: Why is your work not being done by you?

Active: Which boy beat you yesterday?

Passive: By which boy were you beaten yesterday?

2. If the sentence begins with ‘who’, ‘by whom’ is taken as the question word at the beginning of the sentence.

Example:

Active: Who has broken this table?

Passive: By whom has this table been broken?

Active to Passive in Model Auxiliaries:

While changing active to passive voice, ‘be’ is used along with them such as:

Can- can be, could-could be, may-may be, should-should be, would-would be, might-might be, must-must be, has to-has to be, have to-have to be, had to be,  is to-is to be, are to-are to be, am to be, was to- was to be, were to-were to be…

Example:

Active: Can you solve these questions?

Passive:  Can this question be solved by you?

Active: You must invite your friends.

Passive: Your friends must be invited by you.

Active; I have to cook my food daily.

Passive: My food has to be cooked by me daily.

Active to Passive in Imperative Sentences: 

In the imperative sentences, request, order, commend, suggestion, and advice, etc. are depicted and the subject is always ‘you’

Method-1 While changing active to passive voice in imperative sentences, the following phrases can be used as per the sense.

You are requested to

You are advised to

You are ordered to

You are asked to

You are suggested to

You are commanded to

Active: Open the door.

Passive: You are asked to open the door.

Active: Please help me.

Passive: You are requested to help me.

Method 2: Those imperative sentences which have transitive verb or which come with object in them, can be changed into passive voice by using “Let…be”.

Use of Let…be……by you.

Active: Do it.

Passive: Let it be done by you.

Active: Complete your work.

Passive: Let your work be completed by you.  

Some Complicated sentences:

Active: your behaviour vexes me.

Passive: I am vexed at your behavior. ( use of at in place of by)

Active: This box contains 5 kg of butter.

Passive: 5 Kg of butter is contained in this box. ( use of ‘in’ in place of by)

Active: They say that Ashok was a brave king.

Passive: It is said that Ashok was a brave king.

Active: It is time to close the office.

Passive: It is time for the office to be closed.

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