In Spanish, the passive is formed in much the same way as in English, using the verb ser (meaning to be) and a past participle. When you say who the action is or was done by, you use the preposition por (meaning by).
When forming sentences in Spanish, we can use the active voice, where the subject performs an action upon an object, like ‘A’ threw ‘B’. Or we can turn it around and use what we call the passive voice.
The recipient of the action then becomes the subject. All that means is that the focus will be on B, and what happened to him/her/it. ‘B’ was thrown. If we want to, we can also add who did it: ‘B’ was thrown (by A). But that is the point of the passive, that the object becomes the primary focus in a sentence.
Let’s look at an example of someone getting arrested. We can avoid the passive voice by using the impersonal ‘se’ (‘se detuvo a Raúl’), the impersonal third person plural construction (‘detuvieron a Raúl’), or by keeping it active (‘la policía detuvo a Raúl’).
Ser + past participle
When we can’t avoid it, we use the passive voice by conjugating the verb ‘ser’ and adding a past participle. Let’s look at some examples in various tenses.
| El primer acto siempre es seguido por el segundo acto. | The first act is always followed by the second act. |
| Millie fue encontrada en el restaurante. | Millie was found in the restaurant. |
| Durante su enfermedad, el gato era examinado cada día por la veterinaria. | During his illness, the cat was examined every day by the vet. |
| La obra será grabada. | The performance will be recorded. |
| En aquel zoo, los animales serían maltratados. | In that zoo, the animals would get mistreated. |
Ser
Now let’s look at forming the verb ‘ser’ in more detail. We’re going to give you the conjugations for the present, preterite, imperfect, future, and conditional tenses. That way you’re ready for anything, although ‘ser’ + past participle isn’t actually used much with the present or imperfect!
Present:
| soy | somos |
| eres | sois |
| es | son |
Preterite:
| fui | fuimos |
| fuiste | fuisteis |
| fue | fueron |
Imperfect:
| era | éramos |
| eras | erais |
| era | eran |
Future:
| seré | seremos |
| serás | seréis |
| será | serán |
Conditional:
| sería | seríamos |
| serías | seríais |
| sería | serían |
The passive voice (pasiva) emphasizes an action or a condition. Who or what caused the action or condition is unimportant, unknown, or assumed to be general knowledge. Spanish has two ways of expressing passive sentences: the passive voice and the passive “se” (pasiva refleja) both of which are translated using the passive voice in English grammar.