The use of the Passive voice

#When we use the Passive Voice and what are the advantages?

We use the Passive voice in writing or speaking when we want to say something without showing the subject or the pronoun. The advantages of the Passive voice are great in writing and speaking. It lets us build the sentences to the unknown subject or hidden subject. For example, "He opens the window this morning", when I change it to Passive it becomes "The window is opened this morning by someone". If we change the Tense of the verb into past or present perfect then we have to change it in the passive voice, also if we change the pronoun or the subject into plural we must change the verb and the subject into object according to its situation before we change it. In case that the subject is known like "Robert opened the window last night", we change it to, "The window was opened by Robert last night". In the case of plural like , "They opened the windows last night", we change it to be like this: "The windows were opened last night by them if necessary. And so on with other sentences.

Dear Kamal! Thanks for invitation! I will gladly share my knowledge and opinions with your students and you.

What you said about the Passive Voice is absolutely correct. However, there is something to add.

First of all, the passive voice, together with inversion, gives English the "flexibility" it misses because of the fixed word order. It is well known that the first word in any sentence is one we want to stress emotionally (at least, in European languages it is so). So, the passive voice gives us such a possibility in English, i.e., a possibility to choose a subject, the main word in a sentence. Actually, it is unnecessary to think about a verb at all as it can always be used in active or passive form. We have to think about a subject only. I will explain my mind using your examples.

If it is principle that it was Robert who opened the windows, we should use the active voice:

Robert opened the windows (we stress the word "Robert").

But if we mean there was no air to breathe and somebody opened the windows at last, we should use the passive voice:

The windows were opened at last! (we stress the word "windows").

I wish I could attach some file but I don't see such an option here, sorry! Anyway, I hope that my comment may be useful.

Have a nice weekend!

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Comments

Tanya July 16, 2011 12:19

Dear Kamal! Thanks for invitation! I will gladly share my knowledge and opinions with your students and you.

What you said about the Passive Voice is absolutely correct. However, there is something to add.

First of all, the passive voice, together with inversion, gives English the "flexibility" it misses because of the fixed word order. It is well known that the first word in any sentence is one we want to stress emotionally (at least, in European languages it is so). So, the passive voice gives us such a possibility in English, i.e., a possibility to choose a subject, the main word in a sentence. Actually, it is unnecessary to think about a verb at all as it can always be used in active or passive form. We have to think about a subject only. I will explain my mind using your examples.

If it is principle that it was Robert who opened the windows, we should use the active voice:

Robert opened the windows (we stress the word "Robert").

But if we mean there was no air to breathe and somebody opened the windows at last, we should use the passive voice:

The windows were opened at last! (we stress the word "windows").

I wish I could attach some file but I don't see such an option here, sorry! Anyway, I hope that my comment may be useful.

Have a nice weekend!
lucia ryan May 30, 2011 9:35

Teacher...thank you for your complete explanation

I wish I can come to ur class.......:)
Naveed for you™ May 22, 2011 11:26

Nice effort.. very efficiently described..

This reply was deleted.