ABSTRACT
You can say a sentence either in the active voice or the passive voice. In the active sentence, the subject is the “doer” of the action. For instance, consider the following two sentences:
“Evan closes the window.” (active)
“The window is closed by Evan.” (passive)
In the first sentence, Evan is the doer, and the situation is depicted from the doer’s standpoint. However, in the second sentence, the situation is depicted from the standpoint of the object (e.g., the window) instead. In this passive sentence, the focus is not on the doer but on the object of the action. The use of passive voice is more common in English than in Korean. For instance, as seen in the example, in English, you can change a verb into the passive form by using the copula “to be” along with the past participle of the verb (e.g., ~ed), as in “the window was closed.” However, in Korean, there is only a limited set of verbs that can be made passive.