One of the areas which learners of the English language find mind-boggling is the concept of Voice. One wonders which of them must be used in the sentence they’re going to utter. This results in frustration and confusion a lot of times. Even the English grammar exercises don’t come to your rescue to understand the situations where they must be used. This article is going to provide you with insights to use the concept of Voice, effortlessly.
1. Understand the difference between active voice and passive voice:
The Active voice and Passive voice have the same set of ingredients, Subject, Verb, Helping Verb, and Object. The sentence formation is the area that makes the difference.
If you’ve gone through English grammar exercises or English grammar videos for the same topic, you may have observed the difference in the placement of Subject and Object.
In the Active voice, the sentence begins with the ‘doer of the action’, the one who does the action. The sentence ends with the object, the thing, or the person who gets affected by the action done by the doer.
In simple terms,
Subject + Verb + Object.
In the Passive voice, this gets inverted. The sentence begins with the thing that gets affected by the action involved. Interestingly, it ends with the doer of the action.
In simple terms,
Object + Helping Verb + Verb + Subject.
2. The play of Verbs or Action Words:
The Verbs or the ‘Action words’ as they are commonly known are the major parts of the concept of Voice. In an active voice, one uses a whole range of Verb forms including, V1 (the first form of verb e.g. play, speak, talk, etc.), V2 (The past form e.g. played, spoke, talked, etc.), V3 (The third form of verb – used in perfect tenses e.g. played, spoken, talked, etc.) and V4 (The fourth form – used in continuous tenses – playing, speaking, talking, etc.).
But in contrast, only one form of verb is used in the Passive voice i.e. the third form of Verb -V3.
It becomes a challenge when one goes through the English grammar exercises without understanding the essence of the Passive voice. English grammar videos prove to be helpful when you want to understand the context of the difference. In the Passive voice, the main difference in the tenses arises due to the ‘Helping Verbs’ involved.
For example:
In Simple present tense, Object + is/am/are + verb+ Subject
In Simple past tense, Object + was/were + verb + Subject
In the above given examples you may have observed that although the Verb form remains the same, the Helping Verb provides the distinction. Henceforth, in each sentence involving the Passive voice, there is involvement of a ‘Helping Verb’ as per the tense.
3. The complexity of structure
If you go by the advice of language experts, more than 90% believe that sentences that include active voice are more lucid and simpler. In contrast, the sentences involving the Passive voice are way more wordy and complex. Due to this, the usage of the Passive voice is primarily limited to Articles, Journals, and Research work. In a real-life scenario, the probability of the usage of the Passive voice is far less than its counterpart, the Active voice.
It is mostly used in News headlines to conceal the subject and grab the viewer’s attention.
For example: In newspapers, it is being utilized as follows:
- The car got stolen by……Page no. 10
On the News channels, the Headlines go as follows
- This statement has been spoken by……. Don’t miss the 7 pm show to find out.
Sometimes, we’re unaware of the doer of the action, in such a case as well it is used.
For example,
- The buildings have been constructed in the city recently.
- The car has been parked here.
- The work was completed yesterday.
In all the above-mentioned sentences, there is no mention of the Subject as the main focus is on the affected thing i.e. the Object.
4. Ideal usage of passive voice and active voice:
Whenever you feel you want to focus on the person who’s doing the action you must go with the Active voice without a second thought.
If you think that you want to place attention on the thing or person being affected by the course of the action then you must opt for the Passive voice in such a case.
How to practise by using English grammar exercises
It’s quite obvious that you can’t come up with sentences on the spot without any prior work on them.
You must go through some English grammar videos to get acquainted with the sentence structure. Once you’re confident about the sentence structure, then you must begin practicing it in several real-life situations.
For example:
a) Once you wake up, get ready and move to the kitchen to cook something and someone asks you ‘What are you doing?’
It must click in your mind they’re enquiring about the work being done by you, so you must reply in the Active voice. You may answer, ‘I am cooking breakfast for me’.
b) If you’re in the office and suddenly you hear a loud sound of something falling in one of the cabins, you emerge out of your chair and reach there.
You may question, ‘What has happened?’
The other person may answer in the Active voice again, as the focus is on the Subject once again. He/She may answer ‘The laptop has fallen on the floor’.
c) If you’re talking to someone about the development in your city.
The person may ask, ‘Which new projects have been started in your city?’ . Here, the focus is on the Object and not the doer. So, the answer is supposed to be in the Passive voice as well.
You may answer, ‘The Metro project has been started in my city.’
The usage completely depends on the situation. If you feel confused at any point, just wonder what the next person is trying to enquire about. Is it about the person who’s doing the action or the thing affected by that action? Answer as per that. Getting the hang of a concept may take some time initially but once you get it you won’t have to work on it any longer. Learn English Grammar Online with Free Grammar videos and persevere in your language-learning journey.