Active and Passive Voice in English
What do you understand about active and passive voice?
Active and Passive Voice in English
The active and passive voice refer to how a sentence is structured grammatically. The distinction is as follows:
Active Voice:
In the active voice, the subject of the sentence acts.
The structure is: Subject + Verb + Object
Example: “The dog chased the cat.”
Passive Voice:
In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is acted upon by the verb.
The structure is: Object + “to be” verb + Past Participle of the main verb
Example: “The cat was chased by the dog.”
The key differences are:
In the active voice, the subject is doing the action. In passive voice, the subject is having the action done to it.
Passive voice sentences often use forms of the verb “to be” (is, was, will be, etc.) plus the past participle of the main verb.
Passive voice sentences tend to be longer and less direct than active voice sentences.
Active voice is usually considered more concise, clear, and engaging than passive voice.
The choice between active and passive voice depends on the emphasis the writer wants to place and the context of the sentence. Both have their appropriate uses in writing, but active voice is generally preferred when possible for its directness and clarity.
– Written By Pavini Lahoti
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