Forming the Passive Across Tenses

The passive lets you put the receiver of an action first — the thing something happens to, rather than the person who does it. It sounds complicated, but here's the reassuring truth: there's really only one recipe, and once you know it, you can build the passive in any tense you like. Students often think each tense needs a whole new rule to memorise. It doesn't. The clever part is that only one small piece of the recipe changes; the rest stays exactly the same every single time.

The recipe: be + past participle

Every passive is made from a form of be plus the past participle (the -ed form, or the irregular version for tricky verbs):

The ball is kicked. (is + kicked) The window was broken. (was + broken) The cake has been eaten. (has been + eaten)

Here's the key idea: to change the tense, you change the be part — and the past participle stays exactly the same. Kicked stays kicked whether the sentence is present, past or future. It's the be verb that does all the time-travelling.

Turning active into passive

There's a simple three-step swap for flipping an active sentence into a passive one:

1. Take the object (the thing the action happens to) and move it to the front.
2. Add the right form of be + the past participle.
3. Add by … only if the doer really matters.

Active: The chef cooked the meal. Passive: The meal was cooked (by the chef).

See how the meal — the object — jumps to the front, cooked becomes was cooked, and the chef either tags along at the end with by or quietly disappears.

Across the tenses

Because only be changes, the same verb slides through every tense with no drama:

• Present: is / are made
• Past: was / were made
• Present perfect: has / have been made
• Future: will be made
• With a modal: must be made, can be made, should be made

Notice made never budges. Learn to spot that steady past participle and the tenses stop feeling like separate puzzles — they're all the same recipe with a different be on the front.

A second angle: build the participle first

If flipping a whole sentence feels like a lot to juggle, try building it back to front. Start with the past participle of your verb — approve → approved, send → sent, write → written. Get that word solid first. Then hang the right be form in front of it to fix the tense: is approved, was approved, will be approved. Building in that order — participle first, then the be — keeps the "which tense?" fog from creeping in, because you've already nailed the part that never changes.

Watch out — you need the be verb

The most common slip is dropping the be verb altogether, which leaves you with a broken half-sentence:

✗ The window broken. → ✓ The window was broken. ✗ The invoice sent yesterday. → ✓ The invoice was sent yesterday.

Without the be, the sentence just dangles. Read your passive out loud and check there's a form of be in there doing the tense work. If there isn't, it isn't finished.

Watch out — irregular past participles

Regular verbs are easy — they just add -ed (kicked, cooked, painted). But irregular verbs have their own past-participle forms you have to know: break → broken, steal → stolen, write → written, eat → eaten, send → sent. A common mistake is using the wrong one:

✗ The letter was send this morning. → ✓ The letter was sent this morning. ✗ The vase was breaked. → ✓ The vase was broken.

If you're unsure of an irregular participle, it's worth checking — the passive falls apart if that word is wrong.

More worked examples

• ✓ My phone was stolen at the park. (past — was + stolen)
• ✓ The fence will be painted next week. (future — will be + painted)
• ✓ All the cakes have been eaten! (present perfect — have been + eaten)
• ✗ The homework marked already. → ✓ The homework has been marked already.

An edge case: only some verbs can go passive

Here's a limit worth knowing so you don't get stuck. To make a passive, your verb needs an object — a thing the action happens to. Verbs like kick, break, eat and send all have objects (kick the ball, eat the cake), so they flip to passive happily. But some verbs don't take an object at all — think sleep, arrive, laugh, fall. You can't say "The bed was slept" or "The station was arrived," because there's nothing being acted upon. And a few verbs, even though they seem to have an object, still refuse the passive — you'd never say "Three cats are had by us" instead of "We have three cats." If a passive version makes you wince or laugh, trust that reaction and leave the sentence active. The passive is a brilliant tool, but it only works when there's a genuine receiver of the action to put at the front.

Why it matters

Knowing how to build the passive gives you a tool you'll reach for all the time in real writing — especially the more grown-up, factual kind. In a science report, you'll want "the mixture was heated and then cooled," which keeps the focus on the steps rather than on you. In a news-style write-up, "a new library will be built" sounds natural because who's building it isn't the point. And once you can see the single be + past participle pattern under every tense, you stop being scared of long verb forms like "has been delivered" or "will have been finished" — you recognise them as the same simple recipe wearing a different be. That confidence means you can write these forms correctly under exam pressure, instead of guessing and hoping.

Quick check

Make each sentence passive:

1. Someone stole my phone.

2. They will paint the fence.

3. The teacher has marked the tests.

4. Fix the error: "The parcel deliver yesterday."

5. Fix the error: "The email was send this morning."

Where next

• Active and Passive: When to Use Each — choosing the voice.
• Past Participles — the -ed form the passive needs.
• The Get-Passive — the casual got version.