1. Introduction. Verbs
Verbs describe actions. There is someone who performs the action (the subject) and there may be someone who suffers its consequences (the object). The object can have that name even if it refers to a person.
E.g.: Anne takes her son to school.
Anne is the subject of the sentence, and her son is the object.
Verbs that do not take objects are called intransitive.
She smiles.
Other verbs have objects and are called transitive.
He prepares a salad.
There are verbs that can have an object or not, with different meanings.
Without an object: Billy walks.
With an object: Billy walks his dog.
Without an object: Jenny runs.
With an object: Jenny runs a company.
2. The passive voice.
The object can sometimes be more important than the subject. That is, the one who suffers the effects of the action is more important than the one who performs it.
For example, if something happens to a famous person or we do not know who the perpetrator of a crime is.
If we wanted to write in the headline of a newspaper, we would not start with «someone» or «a stranger» because it is convenient to start with the most interesting thing to keep the reader’s attention.
An example that (fortunately) is not real:
Someone stole Lionel Messi’s money.
An unknown person took his money.
The police arrested the thief.
Doctors treated the thief’s wounds.
In this example, Lionel Messi is much more important than the perpetrator, who is also unknown. When we talk about who arrested the thief and who treated his wounds, unless it is an unusual person, we can deduce from the context that we are talking about policemen and doctors. Likewise, if someone steals money, of course we’ll be dealing with a person and a thief.
A headline reflecting unusual circumstances would be different:
A tourist cured the thief’s wounds.
So, when the order of the sentence is subject + verb + object, the sentence is in the active voice. The focus is on the one who performs the action, not on the one who suffers its consequences.
When you start the sentence with the one who suffers the effect of the action described by the verb instead of the one performing it, the sentence is in the passive voice.
Continuing with some sentences from the Lionel Messi example, a newspaper headline might read:
Messi’s money was stolen, but the thief was arrested.
In English, the passive voice is used much more frequently than in Spanish. No one would think of saying that the door was opened, but that it «opened» as if it had opened by its own means, despite being an inanimate object.
So much so that in Spanish someone can say that babies come to this world by themselves (los bebés nacen). They are the protagonists of their own birth, therefore, they are the subjects performing the action, unlike English, where babies “are born.”
To form the passive voice, it is necessary to add 1) the verb «to be» in the same verb tense as the sentence in the active voice and 2) the past participle of the original verb. The past participle is the same as in the present perfect (He has lived).
For example: Active voice: Someone closed the door a minute ago.
The verb of the sentence, closed, is in the simple past tense.
If we change it to passive voice: we place the object at the beginning, add «be» and convert the original verb into past participle.
E.g.: The door was closed a minute ago.
Another example where it is noticeable that the author does not matter as much as the object:
Active voice: An unknown thief stole a diamond.
Passive voice: A diamond was stolen (by an unknown thief).
It’s again the case of the unknown or obvious “perpetrator.” When the person who performs an act is not relevant, it is not necessary to include him or her in the passive voice. Of course, if someone steals something you can refer to him or her as a thief, and it is obvious that he or she is unknown, because if they knew him or her, they would probably say the specific name and put him or her as the subject.
It would be different if the diamond was stolen by a crow or a trained monkey. In that case, it might be interesting to the reader, because it is unusual.
A hypothetical newspaper headline might be:
Active voice: A crow stole a diamond.
Passive voice: A diamond was stolen by a crow.
In the simple future, «will be» is added to form the passive voice.
Active voice: Charles will take the children to school.
Passive voice: The children will be taken to school (by Charles).
In present perfect, there are two past participles, one that was already there because it was the main verb and the other the verb «to be».
Active voice: Daniel has done a good job.
Passive voice: A good job has been done by Daniel.
3. What if there is more than one object?
In this sentence:
Evan gave Frank a present.
We see that there are two objects. One direct «a present» and one indirect «Frank».
Evan gave it to Frank (=the present).
Evan gave him a present (=to Frank).
In English, unlike in Spanish, the passive voice is used and it does not sound so artificial in either object.
A present was given to Evan by Frank (we start the sentence with the direct object).
Evan was given a present by Frank (In Spanish, we would say that Frank received a present, or use an impersonal phrase).
Another example:
Active voice: Someone told Paris Hilton a lie.
For a newspaper headline, it doesn’t matter who it was (otherwise they would have mentioned it) or that it was a lie. The most important thing is the protagonist, that is, the object of the action of telling a lie.
So:
Paris Hilton was told a lie.
4. And what about Spanish?
In Spanish, the use of the passive voice is not so common, it even gives the impression of too much pomposity or artificiality.
As mentioned before, in English, it does not sound bad to say:
The doors will be closed at 8 o’clock.
In Spanish, there are other alternatives because it is not necessary to start sentences with a subject, as it is in English.
The same phrase in Spanish could be expressed literally like this:
“The doors will close.” By themselves? Apparently, yes.
It does not matter too much who will close them.
What is also different in the two languages is the adaptation of the past participle according to gender and number. This means that, in Spanish, the participle is masculine or feminine, singular or plural, unlike in English, where we can say:
The boy was taken home – The girls were taken home.
When it comes to life itself, it is important not to be passive in the face of challenges. Regardless of the language we speak, only we can do what must be done.
