The passive voice in Spanish

Of course! The passive voice (voz pasiva) has a reputation for being the “villain” of Spanish grammar, but it’s actually quite straightforward. It just changes the focus: instead of looking at who does the action, we focus on what happens.

Imagine you’re a detective or a journalist. You don’t care who broke the vase—you care that the vase is broken!

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How to build the passive voice

To form the passive voice in Spanish, you need two key ingredients:

1. The verb “ser” (conjugated in the tense you need).
2. The past participle of the main verb (e.g. comido, roto, visto).

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How to change from active to passive?

Let’s look at a simple example to make it clear:

Active voice: Shakespeare escribió “Hamlet”. (Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet”.) Here, the focus is on Shakespeare.

Passive voice: “Hamlet” fue escrito por Shakespeare. (“Hamlet” was written by Shakespeare.) Here, the focus is on the book.

What happened here?

The object (Hamlet) becomes the subject. We use the verb “ser” in the same tense as the original verb (since wrote is past, we use fue). Then we put the main verb (escribir) in the past participle (escrito).

If we want to say who did the action, we add “por” (by).

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Passive voice tenses table

This is where many learners get confused, but it becomes much clearer with a table:

Tense	Active voice	Passive voice (SER + participle)
Present Simple	I make cakes.	Los pasteles son hechos.
Past Simple	I made a cake.	Un pastel fue hecho.
Present Continuous	I am making a cake.	Un pastel está siendo hecho.
Future (will)	I will make a cake.	Un pastel será hecho.
Present Perfect	I have made a cake.	Un pastel ha sido hecho.

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When do we use the passive voice?

Don’t overuse it (or it will sound unnatural). Use it in these situations:

When we don’t know who did it: “¡Me robaron la bici!” (My bike was stolen!)

When it’s obvious: “El ladrón fue arrestado.” (The thief was arrested—obviously by the police.)

To sound more formal or professional: It’s very common in news and formal writing.

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Practice: passive voice in Spanish

Fill in the correct passive form of the verb: