The Passive Voice —And How To Avoid It . Why?

Question

The pizza was eaten by my friends......La pizza fue comida por mis amigos.

It appears that the passive voice is used quite often. So why should I avoid it?

I see it everywhere. - root1, Oct 2, 2010

Answer 1

It's not that passive voice should always be avoided. However, there are many cases when you should translate something written in passive voice with a translation in active voice.

In your own example, I'm not sure about how good "the pizza was eaten by my friends" sounds, but "la pizza fue comida por mis amigos" doesn't sound idiomatic at all in Spanish. I'd always say "mis amigos se comieron la pizza" instead. Even if the agent is missing ("los amigos"), I'd say something like "alguien se comió la pizza", rather than "la pizza fue comida", which sounds plain awful to me.

Answer 2

The passive voice isn't so much a problem in speech as it is in formal writing. It is viewed as more direct and efficient to say "my friends ate the pizza" than "the pizza was eaten by my friends". When you use the passive voice version, you can completely remove "by my friends" and the sentence still makes sense. This consequently removes the importance of what is referred to as the "agent of action". Sometimes it can be used well in writing to achieve a specific effect, but 99% of the time it should be avoided

Answer 3

This thread was posted by you, yesterday!

Here is it: link text