اللغة الإنجليزية — Grammar: The Passive Voice (All Tenses) — 3 ثانوي — شعبة آداب — بكالوريا — المنهاج الجزائري

The Passive Voice (All Tenses)

The passive voice is used when we want to focus on the action or the receiver of the action rather than the doer. It is common in formal and academic writing.

1. Form of the Passive Voice

Form: Subject + be (conjugated) + past participle (+ by agent)
Present Simple: am/is/are + done
Present Continuous: am/is/are being + done
Past Simple: was/were + done
Past Continuous: was/were being + done
Present Perfect: have/has been + done
Past Perfect: had been + done
Future (will): will be + done
Future (going to): am/is/are going to be + done
Modals: can/must/should be + done

2. When to Use Passive Voice

– When the agent is unknown: "My car was stolen last night."
– When the agent is obvious: "The criminals have been arrested."
– When we want to emphasize the action: "The new hospital will be opened next month."
– In scientific and academic writing: "The experiment was conducted in a controlled environment."

3. Active vs Passive

Active: The chef cooked the meal. → Passive: The meal was cooked by the chef.
Active: People speak English worldwide. → Passive: English is spoken worldwide.
Active: The government will build a new school. → Passive: A new school will be built by the government.

4. Common Mistakes

✗ "The letter was wrote yesterday." (wrong participle)
✓ "The letter was written yesterday."
✗ "The house is build." (missing "be")
✓ "The house is built."

Exercises

1- Change to passive: "Shakespeare wrote Hamlet."
2- Complete: "The project ___ (finish) by next week." "The window ___ (break) yesterday."
3- Correct: "The book was read by him last year." (is this correct?)
4- Write 5 sentences in the passive voice in different tenses.

For more grammar lessons, see Conditional Sentences and Reported Speech.

📍 دروس مشابهة:

• Reported Speech: Statements, Questions and Commands – 3rd Year Literary Stream – Algeria
• English — Word Order and Sentence Structure — 2nd Year Literary Stream
• English — Countable and Uncountable Nouns — 2nd Year Middle School — Algerian Curriculum