Language/French/Grammar/The-passive

The Passive Verb Construction in French Grammar

In French, the passive voice is used to emphasize the action performed on the subject rather than the subject itself. In this lesson, we will explore the passive verb construction in French.

Formation of the Passive Voice

The passive voice is formed by using the verb être (to be) in the appropriate tense followed by the past participle of the main verb. The past participle agrees with the subject in gender and number. For example:

• Le livre est écrit par un célèbre écrivain. (The book is written by a famous writer.)
• La voiture a été vendue hier soir. (The car was sold last night.)
• Les fleurs seront livrées demain matin. (The flowers will be delivered tomorrow morning.)

Tense and Agreement

The passive voice can be used in various tenses, such as the present, past, future, and conditional. The past participle agrees with the subject in gender and number, just as it does in compound tenses with être. For example:

• Le gâteau est mangé par les enfants. (The cake is eaten by the children.)
• Les fleurs ont été cueillies dans le jardin. (The flowers were picked in the garden.)
• Les musées seront visités demain. (The museums will be visited tomorrow.)

Using the Agent

When using the passive voice, the agent (the person or thing that performs the action) can be included using the preposition par. For example:

• Le livre est écrit par un célèbre écrivain. (The book is written by a famous writer.)
• La voiture a été vendue par un concessionnaire. (The car was sold by a dealer.)
• Les fleurs seront livrées par un fleuriste. (The flowers will be delivered by a florist.)

Impersonal Passive

In some cases, the passive voice is used without a subject to convey a general action or state. This is called the impersonal passive. For example:

• Il est dit que la ville est très belle. (It is said that the city is very beautiful.)
• Il a été décidé de fermer le magasin. (It has been decided to close the store.)
• Il sera possible de visiter le château demain. (It will be possible to visit the castle tomorrow.)

Conclusion

Understanding the passive voice and its formation in French is an important part of mastering the language. By knowing how to form the passive voice with être, how to agree with gender and number, and how to use the agent, you can improve your French language skills and communicate more effectively with native speakers.

Table of Contents

Nouns

• Types
• Gender
• Plural

---

Determiners

• Articles
• Typical use of the definite article
• Typical use of the indefinite article
• The partitive article: du, de l', de la, des
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms ne... pas, ne... jamais, ne... plus, ne... guère
• Omission of the article
• Demonstrative determiners
• Possessive determiners

---

Personal and impersonal pronouns

• Subject pronouns
• Object pronouns
• Stressed pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Possessive pronouns

---

Adjectives

• Adjectives modifying the noun
• Adjectives which follow verbs or verbal expressions
• Adjectives with complements
• Indefinite and negative noun phrases with adjective complements
• Adjectives used as nouns
• Adjectives used as adverbs
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives
• Plural forms of adjectives
• Adjective agreement with nouns
• Invariable adjectives
• Compound adjectives
• Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Absolute use of the superlative

---

Adverbs

• Function of adverbs
• Formation of adverbs with the ending -ment
• Adjectives used as adverbs without addition of -ment
• Phrases used as adverbs
• English and French adverb formation
• Types of adverbs
• Location of adverbs

---

Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers

• Cardinal numbers
• Ordinal numbers
• Fractions
• Some differences in the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers in French and English
• Measurements and comparisons
• Dates, days, years
• Clock time
• Money
• Quantifiers

---

Verb forms

• Conjugations
• Easy ways of generating some parts of the paradigms
• Changes in the stem form of some -er conjugation verbs
• Verbs whose stems end in c- or g-
• Verb paradigms

---

Verb constructions

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Intransitive constructions
• Directly transitive verbs
• Indirectly transitive verbs
• Ditransitive verbs
• The passive
• Pronominal verbs
• Impersonal verbs
• Verbs which take noun + adjective or noun + noun complements

---

Verb and participle agreement

• Subject-verb agreement
• Agreement of the past participle with the subject of être
• Agreement of the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir with a preceding direct object
• Agreement of the past participle of pronominal verbs in compound tenses

---

Tense

• The present
• The past
• The future
• Other tenses indicating the time at which events occur relative to other events
• Combining tenses
• Tenses in direct and reported descriptions of events
• Tenses with si

---

The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives

• The attitude of the subject to events: the subjunctive
• The use of devoir, pouvoir, savoir, falloir
• The French equivalents of the English modal verbs: 'would', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'might', 'ought to', and 'must'
• Exclamatives
• Imperatives

---

The infinitive

• Introduction: what are infinitives?
• Infinitives as complements to other verbs
• Verbs which take infinitive complements without a linking preposition
• Verbs which take infinitive complements preceded by the preposition à
• Verbs which take an infinitive complement preceded by de
• Omission of objects before infinitives
• Infinitives as complements to adjectives
• Infinitives as complements to nouns
• Infinitives in subordinate clauses
• Infinitives as polite commands
• Quick-reference index to verbs taking infinitive complements

---

Prepositions

• Introduction
• Prepositions listed alphabetically from à to vers
• French translations for common English prepositions

---

Question formation

• Introduction
• Yes/no questions
• Information questions
• Order of object pronouns in questions involving inversion
• Order of negative particles in questions involving inversion
• Use of question words and phrases: qui?, que?, quoi?, quel?, de qui?, avec combien de? etc.
• Indirect questions

---

Relative clauses

• Introduction
• Use of relative qui
• Use of relative que
• Preposition plus qui
• Use of lequel in relative clauses
• Use of dont, de qui, duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles
• The use of où as a relative pronoun
• Use of relative quoi
• Free relative clauses and the use of ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi, ce sur quoi, etc.
• Translating 'whoever', 'whatever', 'wherever', 'whenever', 'however'
• Indicative and subjunctive in relative clauses

---

Negation

• Introduction
• Location of sentence negators
• Order of negators in multiple negation
• Omission of ne in sentence negation
• Order of negative elements in questions and imperatives
• ne... pas
• ne... que
• ne... aucun(e), ne... nul(le)
• ne... jamais
• ne... plus
• ne... guère
• ne... rien
• ne... personne
• ne... ni... ni
• sans used with other negators
• ne used alone

---

Conjunctions and other linking constructions

• Introduction
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Conjunctions sometimes confused by English speakers
• Repeated subordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions used with infinitive clauses
• après avoir/ être + past participle linking an infinitive clause to a main clause
• Past participle phrases used as linkers
• Present participles and gerunds

Other Lessons

• Gender of makes of vehicle and machines
• Object pronouns
• Sentence modifying adverbs
• How to use « il s'agit de » in French
• The plural indefinite article des
• Easy way of generating the Future and Conditional
• Gender
• Regular plurals in French
• Differences in the use of numbers in French and English Kings, queens and popes
• How to use Have