Use the Passive Voice – To Be Chart, to help you master the Passive Voice quickly!
Apart from knowing the passive sentence structure and the irregular past participle forms of verbs, the challenge with Passive Voice is understanding how to convert to be into the same tense as the active sentence.
Before we look at the chart, let’s do a quiz to reinforce our knowledge of the verb to be and tenses.
Check out the chart!
As you read it over, notice how the verb to be changes in each tense.
How we change ‘to be’ in Passive Voice:
Present Simple:
verbs with I – am
verbs with you – are
verbs with he, she, it – is
verbs with we, they – are
Past Simple:
verbs with I, he, she, it – was
verbs with you, we, they – were
Present Continuous:
verbs with I – am being
verbs with you – are being
verbs with he, she, it – is being
verbs with we, they – are being
Past Continuous:
verbs with I, he, she, it – was being
verbs with you, we, they – were being
Present Perfect:
verbs with I, you, we, they – have been
verbs with he, she, it –has been
Past Perfect:
had been
Modal Auxiliary Verbs:
Modal + be
will be
can be
maybe
shall be
would be
could be
might be
should be
must be
Semi Modals:
had better – had better be
Notice the infinitive form of to be in the following semi modals. Be sure to include it in the passive form.
need to – need to be
have to – have to be be
used to – used to be
ought to – ought to be
supposed to – supposed to be
to be + going to – to be + going to be
to be + about to – to be + about to be
to be + able to – can be/could be
Learn more about semi-modal verbs.
Try the quiz!
Add the correct form of to be to complete the sentences in passive voice.
