Passive voice

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In short

Use the passive when you care more about the action and who or what receives it than about the doer: be (in the right tense) + past participle (The bridge was built in 1905). Add the doer only if it matters, with by (…by a famous engineer).

The rule

In an active sentence, the subject does the action. In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action:

Active: Workers repair the road. (focus on the workers)
Passive: The road is repaired. (focus on the road)

Choose the passive when the doer (the “agent”) is:

Reason	Example
unknown	My bike was stolen* last night.* (I don’t know who)
obvious	He was arrested. (by the police, clearly)
unimportant	The shop is cleaned* every evening.*
you want focus on the receiver	Penicillin was discovered* in 1928.*

This is why the passive is common in news, science, instructions, and formal writing.

To turn active into passive:

The object of the active sentence becomes the subject.
The verb becomes be + past participle (in the same tense).
The old subject becomes a by-phrase - and you can usually drop it.

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. -> Hamlet was written (by Shakespeare).

Only transitive verbs (verbs that take an object) can be passive. Verbs like arrive, happen, sleep, exist have no object, so they have no passive form. (You cannot say An accident was happened.)

Forms & patterns

The past participle stays the same; only be changes for the tense or modal:

Tense / form	Active	Passive (be + past participle)
Present simple	makes	is / are made
Past simple	made	was / were made
Present continuous	is making	is / are being made
Past continuous	was making	was / were being made
Present perfect	has made	has / have been made
Past perfect	had made	had been made
Future (will)	will make	will be made
Future (going to)	is going to make	is going to be made
Modal	can make	can / must / should be made

get-passive (informal): in everyday speech, get often replaces be, usually for things that happen to someone, often suddenly or unluckily:

He got fired last week. (= was fired)
She got promoted. / They got married in June.

Two objects: verbs like give, send, offer, tell, show, pay have two objects, so either can become the subject:

Active: They gave me a prize.
Passive 1: I was given a prize. (more common - focus on the person)
Passive 2: A prize was given to me.

Examples

English	Note
This bridge was built more than a hundred years ago.	Past simple passive; doer unknown/unimportant.
English is spoken in many countries.	Present simple; general fact, agent unimportant (people in general).
Sorry, your car is being repaired right now.	Present continuous; action in progress.
The house has finally been sold.	Present perfect; result matters, not the buyer.
Your order will be delivered on Monday.	Future with will; focus on the order.
These phones are made in three different factories.	Process/description; the makers aren’t the point.
Tom got promoted after only one year.	get-passive; informal, something that happened to him.
The winners were given a free trip.	Two-object verb; person becomes the subject.

Common mistakes

The window was break. -> The window was broken. - use the past participle, not the base form.
It is write in English. -> It is written in English. - watch irregular participles (write -> written).
An accident was happened. -> An accident happened. - happen is intransitive, so no passive.
The work is done from the team. -> The work is done by the team. - the agent takes by, not from.
This song was sang by her. -> This song was sung by her. - sing -> sang -> sung; the passive needs the participle.

Tips

Two parts, always: a form of be (or get) + a past participle. If one is missing, it isn’t passive.
Ask “Do I know or care who did it?” If no, the passive is often the natural choice.
Keep the tense in the be part: is cleaned (now), was cleaned (past), will be cleaned (future).
Drop by unless the doer is new or important information: say My phone was stolen, not …by someone.