Skip to content

Passive Voice of Perfect Past Tense

In passive voice of perfect past tense of affirmative sentence, we use auxiliary verb ‘had’ with ‘been’ and past participle that is third form of verb.  In this topic, we shall discuss the formation and changing active to passive voice of perfect past tense.

 Passive Voice of Perfect Past Tense- Formation

In this, we use helping verb ‘had’ for any subject that is-

  • If subject of passive voice is first person, singular or plural number that is ‘I’ and ‘we’.
  • For subject of second person singular or plural number that is ‘you’.
  • If subject is third person singular or plural number that is ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, they’ or any other person.

In passive voice of perfect past tense– positive, negative, interrogative and negative interrogative, we use past participle (third form) of verb.

Keep in mind that we should arrange the sentence in the following form-

  • Active sentence- subject + had + past participle of verb + object
  • Passive sentence- object of the active sentence + had + been + past participle ( third form ) of verb + by + subject of the active sentence

Example of Perfect Past Tense- Transformation

Now we shall take an example of prefect past tense and transform it into passive voice.

Have a look–

Active: She had drawn a picture yesterday. (draw – base form)

For this, first you should learn the formation of perfect past tense.

Above sentence is in the form-

  • Subject + had + past participle of verb + object + remaining word

Passive: A picture had been drawn by her yestreday. (drawn- past participle of draw)

Passive voice of this sentence is in the form-

  • Object in active + had + been + past participle of ‘draw’+ by + subject in active + remaining word.

In above sentence, we can see the changes in the transformation of active to passive voice as:

  • Object of active form (picture) became subject.
  • Subject ‘she’ became object- ‘her’.
  • Past form of have that is ‘had’ with ‘been’ is added
  • Past participle of verb ‘draw’ that is ‘drawn’ is taken.

     More Examples- Passive Voice of Perfect Past Tense

All of these sentences are affirmative.

Have a look-

Active: They had watched a movie.

  • Passive: A movie had been watched by them.

Active: A mason had built a wall.

  • Passive: A wall had been built by a mason.

Active: A teacher had delivered a lecture.

  • Passive: A lecture had been delivered by a teacher.

Active: The students had obeyed orders of their physical trainer.

  • Passive: Orders of their physical trainer had been obeyed by the students.

You may also like passive voice of the tenses-

  1. Simple Present
  2. Present Continuous
  3. Simple Past
  4. Past Continuous
  5. Perfect Present
  6. Simple Future
  7. Future Perfect