Transforming 'I Have Read a Book' into Passive Voice: A Comprehensive Guide

The verbs 'have' and 'had' are categorized as passive because they indicate that the subject is having something done to it. This process involves changing the structure of the sentence to focus on the object rather than the subject, hence the name 'passive voice'. In contrast, active voice focuses on the subject performing an action. Understanding this transformation is crucial for effective communication, especially in technical writing, formal documents, and academic papers.

Present Indefinite Tense and Passive Transformation

The sentence 'I have read a book' is an example of the present indefinite tense. In active voice, it clearly states that the subject ('I') is performing the action of reading. To transform this sentence into passive voice, we follow these steps:

Active Voice:

I have read a book.

Passive Voice:

A book has been read by me.

Here, the sentence structure changes from 'subject present part. of verb object' to 'object in active sentence is/past part. of verb by subject in active sentence'. In our example, 'a book' (the object in the active sentence) becomes the subject in the passive sentence, and 'read' (the infinitive form of the verb) becomes 'has been read'. The agent (the subject in the active sentence) 'I' is added at the end in prepositional phrase 'by me'.