Passive voice

passive demonstration

To learn Passive voice it is necessary to know the past participles. If you do not know the past participles go to our post on Past participle and learn the irregular verbs first. Once you do not have any problems with past participles, it is time to learn the Passive voice in English.
Passive voice is used if the subject (the thing before the verb) does not do the action described by the verb. Then you have to insert the verb “TO BE” in the correct form in front of the verb in past participle.

Passive – graphical presentation

First there is a mind map describing the form of the passive.
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passive-voice

The second graphic clearly shows the usage of passive voice: Your task is to write two sentences under each picture using present simple tense and past simple. The sentences in the first column should be in active voice and the sentences in the second column should be in passive voice.

passive demonstration

See how passive is formed

Passive – games

Here you have a chance to learn the passive through games. Play each game at least twice and then I think that you will understand the basic rules of passives.
The first game is a simple online quiz. Try to fill in the verbs in the correct form.

Passive – online quiz

The second game is called Hoop shoot. Once again, choose the correct form and then stop the sliders in the center.
Click Here to play the game – Passive Hoop Shoot

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35 Comments

  1. emad
    Thanks for your helpful tips on grammar.
    24/03/2014 at 8:30 am
  2. Andrew Martin Lorimer
    The study of 'grammar' is so interesting. Of course the grammar of a language follows the 'collective human mind's understanding', and as such, if it is a correct description, is truly representative of it's speakers representative sample.
    24/03/2014 at 8:37 am
  3. Moeoo Koko
    many thanks!
    24/03/2014 at 8:38 am
  4. TBONG
    very hard for beginer
    24/03/2014 at 8:46 am
  5. Zdenda
    I am glad you find this grammar explanation useful.
    24/03/2014 at 9:03 am
  6. Beatriz
    Thank you so much for your explanation.
    24/03/2014 at 12:58 pm
  7. Hassan
    Very informative. Especially for language teachers.
    24/03/2014 at 1:37 pm
  8. Mayra Vera
    Thanks a lot!!! This is something Ss always struggle with.
    24/03/2014 at 2:03 pm
  9. elena
    very useful,thank you :)
    24/03/2014 at 3:35 pm
  10. Keti
    very useful
    24/03/2014 at 6:25 pm
  11. Elena
    Great...I was loking for something like that!!!!!! Thanks from South of Italy!!!
    24/03/2014 at 8:06 pm
  12. Zdenda
    I am happy that you find this grammar explanation useful.
    25/03/2014 at 3:29 am
  13. Zdenda
    I am glad you see the grammar explanation in this way.
    25/03/2014 at 3:30 am
  14. Zdenda
    Yeah, when I was teaching this grammar two weeks ago I failed completely. Many students started to understand passive only after being presented the other picture.
    25/03/2014 at 3:32 am
  15. Zdenda
    Not only for the teachers. It is for the students too. They can learn the grammar here.
    25/03/2014 at 3:32 am
  16. very informative thanks
    25/03/2014 at 5:23 am
  17. rasyida
    very usefull, thanks!
    25/03/2014 at 5:39 am
  18. Zdenda
    Thank you. I try to explain the grammar as well as I can.
    25/03/2014 at 5:56 am
  19. Muslymat
    I ve taught my students this very topic,but not like this, I think this method is simple and students will understand easily. Thanks so much.
    30/03/2014 at 1:11 am
  20. Zdenda
    Yeah, I have tried to teach my students passive for a long time and I am really happy with this explanation.
    30/03/2014 at 4:47 am
  21. Thank you for your work ! Can I have a question ? Do you teach with Project 3rd edition ? :-) When I look for something that I need for my lesson, I always find your web :-D and yopur nice mind maps. Can I share your link on my web ? Jitka
    31/03/2014 at 7:58 pm
  22. Zdenda
    Yes, I teach Project 3rd edition and most of the material here is created for my classrooms. You are welcome to share the material here as long as you put a link to this site there.
    01/04/2014 at 2:30 am
  23. The Anglophile
    Hello there~^^ I love how you explain the active and passive voice in this kind of interactive illustrations~ How about if you make another to explain the usage of have/had/has and were/was~^^ again thank you~^^
    04/04/2014 at 6:21 am
  24. Zdenda
    That is a great idea. I will jump on it next week.
    05/04/2014 at 4:05 am
  25. Nmer
    We are sure that the mental map is very important and useful but we have another technique. you are going on the whole tenses!
    06/04/2014 at 2:15 pm
  26. Zdenda
    Could you explain in more detail what you mean?
    06/04/2014 at 2:41 pm
  27. This is really great lesson to learn the Passive voice in English. Because most of learners make mistakes about passive voice. But you shared very useful explanations, pictures and more here. Thanks.
    07/04/2014 at 1:07 pm
  28. SUBHAN
    It's really useful I've tried with my student Thanks .
    12/04/2014 at 2:30 pm
  29. Moh
    could you please tell me what software do you use for making these games ? please
    25/06/2014 at 6:12 pm
  30. Zdenda
    I have been using Contentgenerator.net games and ispringsolutions.com
    27/06/2014 at 12:07 pm
  31. Zdenda
    I have used the following software: Flash games from contentgenerator.net, ispringsolutions.com, imindmap.com, codecanyon.com and edrawmax.
    14/07/2014 at 10:52 am
  32. khanh nhu vo
    it's very useful for me, simple and easy to understand
    20/07/2014 at 8:38 am
  33. Zdenda
    Then we have achieved what we wanted to. Thank you for your appreciation.
    21/07/2014 at 2:33 pm
  34. Tegbe
    Thanks for this inspiring tools.
    17/08/2014 at 3:26 am
  35. Melitina Trigueros
    Thanks a lot for your help.
    06/09/2014 at 2:10 am

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