The passive voice is a structure that allows you to make a statement without knowing who performed the action of the sentence: The house was destroyed. Or the person who performed the action is placed in a passive position in the sentence: The house was destroyed by soldiers.
An active sentence is commonly structured subject 1 verb 1 direct object. A passive sentence changes that structure to direct object used as the subject 1 to be 1 past participle 1 by 1 subject used as the object of the preposition. Let’s compare the two structures:
| Active Sentences | Passive Sentences |
| Kim finds the dog. | The dog is found by Kim. |
| We buy his car. | His car is bought by us. |
| The girls stole the purse. | The purse was stolen by the girls. |
| They solved the problem. | The problem was solved by them. |
The verb to be in the passive sentences is conjugated in the same tense as the verb in the active sentences. Look how the various tenses appear in the passive:
| Tense | Passive Sentences |
| Present | The house is destroyed by the soldiers. |
| Past | The house was destroyed by the soldiers. |
| Present Perfect | The house has been destroyed by the soldiers. |
| Past Perfect | The house had been destroyed by the soldiers. |
| Future | The house will be destroyed by the soldiers. |
| Future Perfect | The house will have been destroyed by the soldiers. |
Only in the present and past tenses is there a difference between the habitual form of the conjugation and the conjugation for an action in progress or incomplete:
- the house is destroyed/the house is being destroyed
- the house was destroyed/the house was being destroyed