Generally we use the passive voice to indicate what happened to the subject of the sentence without saying who or what carried out the action, meaning that i n the passive voice voz pasiva, the subject is acted upon by an outside agent. French language tutorial learn languages online with. It changes the emphasis to the person or thing being acted upon the subject, rather than the person or thing performing that action the agent. Passive resistance was the preferred technique of several noted leaders, such as martin luther king, jr. We use a passive verb to say what happens to the subject. Its passive because the subject is being acted upon, rather than acting as in the active voice. The agent may be implied or introduced by one of two prepositions. The active voice is when the subject of the sentence makes the action. When the agent is specified, the passive voice is expressed by. As seen in this sentence, the passive voice is used to indicate that something is being done to a subject by an agent. Recommended pages from our site selected by our team. Passive voice in spanish, gerund, spanish past participle.