How to Make a Passive Sentence Active

Fixing passive sentences will come naturally once you understand.

Many English teachers cringe when their students write sentences in the passive tense. As a student it can be difficult to reconstruct your passive sentences, especially when they sound as if they make sense. Through these steps you will learn the quick rules to making your grammar life a breeze. This simple and speedy fix will make your writing much cleaner and clearer.

Instructions

1. Read over your sentences and ask yourself "who is doing the action." In active voice the noun should be doing the action. In passive voice your subject is the direct object.

2. Use the sentence "The race was run by Jan" as an example. In this sentence, "race" is the noun, and unfortunately "the race" cannot run. Therefore, in order to reconstruct the sentence, move the subject of the sentence, "Jan," into the place where Jan is the one running.

3. Check your new sentence. When moving the subject to the front of the sentence it now reads "Jan ran the race." This is the correct active voice because Jan is now running the race.

References

• English Page: Active/Passive Verb Forms

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish