Lesson 39: Passive voice and its French alternatives

Part 1: What the passive is

In the active voice, the subject does the action:

Le chef prépare le plat. — The chef prepares the dish.

In the passive voice, the subject receives the action; the doer (the "agent") moves to the back of the sentence or disappears:

Le plat est préparé par le chef. — The dish is prepared by the chef. Le plat est préparé. — The dish is prepared. (no agent)

The formula — identical to English:

être (in any tense) + past participle (agrees with the subject) + par / de + agent

The direct object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive. The active subject becomes the agent, introduced by par.

Trap! The passive only works with transitive verbs (verbs that take a direct object). Aller, venir, partir, arriver have no direct object → no passive. Same logic as English: you can't say "I was gone by him".

Part 2: Participle agreement (refresher from L24)

In the passive, the participle always agrees with the subject — just like an adjective. This is the most predictable agreement zone in French.

In compound tenses: the agreement goes on the participle of the main verb, never on été.

La réforme a été votée hier. — The reform was voted in yesterday. Les réformes ont été votées hier. — The reforms were voted in yesterday. Les victimes avaient été identifiées la veille. — The victims had been identified the day before.

Compare with L24: under avoir, the participle only agrees with a preceding direct object. Under être (including the passive), it always agrees with the subject. Passive = the simple zone. If you survived L24, you've already done the hard work.

Part 3: The passive in every tense

Only the tense of être changes. The participle of the main verb stays the same.

Journalistic conditional (preview of L49): Le suspect aurait été arrêté ce matin — "The suspect has reportedly been arrested this morning." The conditional here means "allegedly / according to unconfirmed sources". English achieves this with "reportedly" or "is said to have"; French just shifts the tense.

Part 4: par or de?

The agent is normally introduced by par. But a small group of verbs prefers de — almost all of them describe a state, an emotion, or an enduring relationship rather than a physical action.

• La maison est entourée d'arbres. — The house is surrounded by trees. (state)
• Le voleur a été entouré par la police. — The thief was surrounded by the police. (action)
• Elle est aimée de tous. — She is loved by everyone. (emotion)
• Le palais a été construit par Louis XIV. — The palace was built by Louis XIV. (action)

Rule of thumb: if you could plausibly add "right now, actively doing it" → par. If it's "in this state in general" → de. English uses by for both — you have to learn which French verbs flip the switch.

Part 5: The pronominal passive (ça se fait)

Here's the big shift from English. French does not like a full passive in everyday speech. Instead, it uses a reflexive construction: the thing becomes the subject, the verb takes se, and the agent disappears entirely.

Ça se dit comment en français ? — How do you say that in French? (lit. "How does that say itself?") Le vin blanc se boit frais. — White wine is drunk chilled. Ces livres se vendent bien. — These books sell well. Ça ne se fait pas ! — That's not done! / You don't do that!

English speakers find this strange at first because we'd say "you/one doesn't do that" or use the active "we drink it chilled". French uses the reflexive form to express exactly the same generic-receiver meaning.

When it works:

• general rule, habit, custom
• property of the object
• instructions
• agent is unknown or unimportant

When it doesn't work:

• when you need to name the agent (use the full passive or active instead)
• with most animate subjects in the object role (avoid "Marie se voit par Paul" — say Marie est vue par Paul or Paul voit Marie)

The English clue: if you can rephrase the English passive as "people / they / you generally…", the French version probably wants se or on, not the literal passive. "French is spoken here" really means "people speak French here" — and On parle français ici nails that.

Part 6: On — the workhorse alternative (refresher from L4)

In spoken French, on replaces the passive maybe 80% of the time. On = "they (in general)", "one", "someone", "we" — a generic doer. It conjugates as third person singular, but you almost never translate it word-for-word.

Translation strategy for any English passive without a clear agent:

• newspaper / report / law → passive (Il a été décidé que…)
• speech about a habit or general rule → se (Ça se fait souvent)
• everything else (conversation) → on (On a décidé que…)

When you hear yourself thinking "the literal French passive sounds heavy here", trust that instinct — switch to on. Native speakers do this without noticing.

Part 7: The impersonal passive (Il a été décidé…)

For the most formal register (laws, minutes of meetings, science papers): start with impersonal Il + the passive.

Il a été décidé que la séance serait reportée. — It was decided that the meeting would be postponed. Il est interdit de fumer. — Smoking is forbidden. (lit. "It is forbidden to smoke.") Il sera procédé à un nouveau vote. — A new vote will be held.

This is the French equivalent of legalese English "It is hereby resolved that…" — fine in a contract, ridiculous in a café.

Loop with L38 (reported speech): news bulletins love stacking these — Il a été annoncé que le président avait signé le décret. — note the avait signé (plus-que-parfait) after a past speech verb. Lock that pairing in.

Loop with L37 (conditional sentences): Si la loi était votée, la situation changerait. — If the law were passed, the situation would change. The passive sits perfectly inside type 2 and type 3 si-clauses.