Passive (Il passivo)

Practice:Passive

What does it mean for a verb to be passive? Take these two examples:

• The president held a press conference yesterday.
• A press conference was held by the president yeterday.

In the first example, the verb is active, meaning the subject of the sentence (the president) carries out or executes the action (held). In the second example, rather, the verb is passive, because the subject of the sentence (a press conference) is acted upon. Recall that in writing classes, passive constructions are often discouraged when the agent of the action (like the president) is mentioned. Passive constructions tend to water down the significance of the action, and strong writing often relies on use of the active voice to make its points lucidly and persuasively. However, the passive voice is often useful when the agent of the action is unknown or impersonal. For example:

• When were those dormitories built?
• My car was stolen.
• Are many Italian dictionaries sold here?

In Italian, a passive voice certainly exists. It is much like English. It is formed by putting essere in the appropriate tense and adding the past participle of the main verb.

English	Italian	Passive Verb Tense
When were those dormitories built?	Quando furono costruiti quei dormitori?	passato remoto
My car was stolen	La mia macchina e' stata rubata.	passato prossimo
Many Italian dictionaries are sold here.	Qui sono venduti molti vocabolari italiani.	presente
A new prime minister will be elected next year.	Un nuovo primo ministro sara' eletto l'anno prossimo.	futuro
During our time at the hotel the room was cleaned every day	Durante il tempo all'albergo la camera era pulita ogni giorno.	imperfetto

Do not get overwhelmed by the details of putting verbs of different tenses in the passive. It is easier than you think. Think of the passive as a mere combination of the verb essere (in the proper tense) together with the past participle of the main verb. For example:

La lettera è scritta.	The letter is written.
La lettera è stata scritta.	The letter was written.
La lettera sarà scritta.	The letter will be written.
La lettera sarebbe scritta.	The letter would be written.

In all these sentences, you use the lui/lei form of essere (which agrees with the singular subject, la lettera), putting it in the proper tense (present, passato prossimo, future, conditional) and combining it with the past participle of scrivere, scritta (which ends in -a in order to agree with the subject, la lettera).

If you do need to specify an agent of the action while using the passive, you use the preposition da. For example:

• La divina commedia fu scritto da Dante. The Divine Comedy was written by Dante.
• I compiti sono stati corretti dall' assistente del professore. The quizzes were graded by the teaching assistent.

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Passivo o si impersonale?

In Italian, the passive is used much less than it is in English. In place of the passive, you often use the si impersonale:

English	Passive	Si impersonale
When were those dormitories built?	Quando furono costruiti quei dormitori?	Quando si costrussero quei dormitori?
My car was stolen	La mia macchina e' stata rubata.	Si e' rubata la mia macchina.
Many Italian dictionaries are sold here.	Qui sono venduti molti vocabolari italiani.	Qui si vendono molti vocaboli italiani.
A new prime minister will be elected next year.	Un nuovo primo ministro sara' eletto l'anno prossimo.	Si eleggera' un nuovo primo ministro l'anno prossimo.
During our time at the hotel the room was cleaned every day.	Durante il tempo all'albergo la camera era pulita ogni giorno.	Durante il tempo all'albergo si puliva la camera ogni giorno.

Practice Exercises