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 3^rd 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

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.