Detective Haika

Use of Passive

The passive voice is less usual than the active voice. The active voice is the "normal" voice. But sometimes we need the passive voice.

Passive voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not known, however, who or what is performing the action.

Example: "My manga was stolen."

In the example above, the focus is on the fact that my manga was stolen. I do not know, however, who did it.

Sometimes a statement in passive is more polite than active voice, as the following example shows:

Example: "A fight was made."

In this case, I focus on the fact that a fight was made, but I do not blame anyone (e.g. You have made a fight.).

We use the passive when:

• we want to make the active object more important
• we do not know the active subject

Form of Passive

Subject + finite form of to be + Past Participle

Example: "An Anime was watched."

When rewriting active sentences in passive voice, note the following:

• the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence
• the finite form of the verb is changed (to be + past participle)
• the subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive sentence (or is dropped)

The main verb is always in its past participle form.

Look at these examples:

subject	auxiliary verb (to be)		main verb (past participle)
Water	is		drunk	by Kotori.
Anime	are		watched	by Otaku.
Manga	is		read	by me.
Cosplayers	are	not	paid	in dollars.
Are	they		paid	in yen?

We can form the passive in any tense. In fact, conjugation of verbs in the passive tense is rather easy, as the main verb is always in past participle form and the auxiliary verb is always be. To form the required tense, we conjugate the auxiliary verb. So, for example: 

present simple: A visual novel is made

present continuous: A visual novel is being made

present perfect: A visual novel has been made

Here are some examples with most of the possible tenses:

Infinitive		to be made
Present Tense	present	It is made.
	past	It was made.
	future	It will be made.
	conditional	It would be made.
Continuous Tense	present	It is being made.
	past	It was being made.
	future	It will be being made.
	conditional	It would be being made.
Perfect Tense	present	It has been made.
	past	It had been made.
	future	It will have been made.
	conditional	It would have been made.
Perfect Continuous Tense	present	It has been being made.
	past	It had been being made.
	future	It will have been being made.
	conditional	It would have been being made.