Watch the sentence change direction.
Passive voice moves the receiver of the action to the front while the meaning remains connected.
In the passive voice of the past continuous tense in an affirmative sentence, we use the auxiliary verb was/were with being and the past participle, that is, the third form of the verb.
Passive Voice of Past Continuous Tense- Formation
In this, we use the helping verb according to the subject, that is,
- If the subject of the passive voice is first person and singular number, that is ‘I’, the helping verb ‘was’ is used
- For the subject of the third person singular, that is ‘he, she or it’, the helping verb ‘was’ is used
- If the subject is plural or second person, the helping verb ‘were’ is used.
In the passive voice of the past continuous tense – positive, negative, interrogative and negative interrogative – we use the past participle (third form) of the verb.
Keep in mind that we should arrange the sentence in the following form:
- Active sentence: subject + was / were + present participle (-ing form) of the verb + object
- Passive sentence: object of the active sentence + was / were + being + past participle (third form) of the verb + by + subject of the active sentence
Example of Active-Passive Voice Transformation
Now we shall see an example of the passive voice in the past continuous tense.
Active: She was drawing a picture yesterday. (drawing – present participle of draw)
The above sentence is in the form:
- Subject + was + present participle of ‘draw’ + object
Passive: A picture was being drawn by her yesterday. (drawn – past participle of draw)
The passive voice of this sentence is in the form:
- Object in active + was + being + past participle of ‘draw’ + by + subject in active + remaining word.
In the above sentence, we can see the changes that occur when transforming from active to passive voice as follows:
- The object of the active form (picture) became the subject.
- The subject ‘she’ became the object ‘her’.
- The past tense of to be (was) and being is added
- The past participle of the verb ‘draw’, which is ‘drawn‘, is taken.
More Examples
All of these are affirmative sentences.
Active: They were watching a movie.
- Passive: A movie was being watched by them.
Active: A mason was building a wall.
- Passive: A wall was being built by a mason.
Active: A teacher was delivering a lecture.
- Passive: A lecture was being delivered by a teacher.
Active: The students were obeying orders of their physical trainer.
- Passive: Orders of their physical trainer were being obeyed by the students.
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