In passive voice of simple past tense of affirmative sentence, we use auxiliary verb was /were with past participle that is third form of verb. In this topic, we shall discuss the formation and changing active to passive voice of simple past tense.
Passive Voice of Simple Past Tense- Formation
In this, we use helping verb according to the subject that is-
- if subject of passive voice is first person and singular number that is ‘I’, we use helping verb ‘was’
- for subject of third person and singular number that is ‘he, she or it’, helping verb ‘was’ is used
- if subject is plural or second person, we use helping verb ‘were’.
In passive voice of simple 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 + past tense of verb + object
- Passive sentence- object of the active sentence + was / were + 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 simple past tense passive voice –
Active: She drew a picture yesterday. (drew- past form of draw)
Above sentence is in the form-
- Subject + past tense of ‘draw’ + object
Passive: A picture was drawn by her yesterday. (drawn – past participle of draw)
Passive voice of this sentence is in the form-
- Object in active (a picture) + was + past participle of ‘draw’ (drawn)+ by + subject in active (her) + 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 tense of ‘to be- was’ is added
- Past participle of verb ‘draw’ that is drawn is taken.
More Examples
All of these are affirmative sentences. Used verbs are in parenthesis.
Active: They watched a movie. (watch)
- Passive: A movie was watched by them.
Active: A mason built a wall. (build)
- Passive: A wall was built by a mason.
Active: A teacher delivered a lecture. (deliver)
- Passive: A lecture was delivered by a teacher.
Active: The students obeyed orders of their physical trainer. (obey)
- Passive: Orders of their physical trainer were obeyed by the students.
You may also like passive voice of the tenses-
- Simple Present
- Continuous Present
- Perfect present
- Continuous Past
- Perfect past
- Simple Future
- Future Perfect
