Task
What Is Active Voice?
I’ll start with active voice because it’s simpler. In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action. A straightforward example is the sentence “Steve loves Amy.” Steve is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Amy, the object of the sentence.
Another example is the title of the Marvin Gaye song I Heard It through the Grapevine. “I” is the subject, the one who is doing the action. “I” is hearing “it,” the object of the sentence.
What Is Passive Voice?
In passive voice, the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. Instead of saying, “Steve loves Amy,” I would say, “Amy is loved by Steve.” The subject of the sentence becomes Amy, but she isn’t doing anything. Rather, she is just the recipient of Steve’s love. The focus of the sentence has changed from Steve to Amy.
If you wanted to make the title of the Marvin Gaye song passive, you would say It was heard by me through the grapevine, not such a catchy title anymore.
