What is Active Voice? Definition and Example Sentences
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Active Voice
In the verb, which is one of the most important grammatical topics in English, the roof appears in two different forms as the active voice and the passive voice. It is impossible for us to tell you what the active voice is without telling you what the passive voice is. Let’s take a look at two different examples that we have given below:
Benjamin greeted his friend Alice, whom he had not seen for years, at the airport.
Alice was greeted at the airport by her friend Benjamin, whom she had not met for years.
When we take a look at these two sentence examples, we see that both sentences have a different sequence and meaning from each other. Although what is described in the two sentences is that Alice is waiting at the airport by Benjamin, the two sentences are told from completely different perspectives. At first glance, you may not have understood what is different, what is different is the subjects. The subject in the first sentence is Benjamin, while the subject in the second sentence is Alice. While Active Voice is used in the first sentence, Passive Voice is used in the second sentence.
What is the Difference Between Active Voice and Passive Voice?
If Active Voice is used in a sentence, we can say that the person doing the action or the action is the subject. In the Benjamin example we gave just above, Benjamin was the person who did the work in the first sentence. In other words, the sentence that Benjamin was the subject of was Active Voice. In the first sentence, Alice functions as an object and is completely affected by the action of the subject, that is, Benjamin.
In the second sentence, where we say that Alice was greeted by Benjamin, the subject of the sentence became the object in the first sentence and our action became “waited” instead of “waited”. The fact that the subject is Alice, not Benjamin, and the verb undergoes such a change, shows us that Passive Voice is used.
Let’s reinforce this topic by taking a look at the Passive Voice and Active Voice examples below:
- I made a salad for dinner. (Active Voice)
- The salad was made for dinner. (Passive Voice)
Active Voice Examples
To better understand Active Voice, carefully review the examples I have provided for you below:
- I have carefully selected the most beautiful roses in the world for you.
- He was exceedingly enthusiastic and happy for the day he was to marry Jennifer Alexander.
- An important professor in our school argued that the biggest cause of global warming is the deodorants we use, but this thought was completely wrong.
- Although Albert Einstein and Nicola Tesla were the two best scientists of their time, Nicola Tesla preferred a quiet life, and Albert Einstein a famous life.
- If Nicola Tesla could find the necessary money, he would have developed a system that can now provide electricity to people wirelessly.
- Some people oppose space studies and organize protests because they think that going into space is completely unnecessary.
