Passive voice and responsibility in French

Level B2

Passive voice and responsibility in French

French lets you foreground the person acting, the affected thing or a topic already being discussed. The passé composé in these examples can translate either an English simple past or a present perfect, so do not choose the tense by matching English auxiliaries word for word. “On” takes a singular verb and can mean unspecified people or conversational “we”; it does not necessarily mean a separate group of “them”. Use the formal dialogue in professional or respectful exchanges and the informal dialogue with familiar people: “vous” and “te” distinguish relationships that English “you” leaves unmarked.

Two meanings of “by”: “par” for the agent, “d’ici” for a deadline

  • parby
  • d'iciby

Name who acted with “Le responsable a modifié…”

Agent avoir au présent + participe passé de {changer|to-change} objet.

Put what changed first with the past passive “a été modifié”

Objet être au présent + participe passé de changer par agent.

Use “On a modifié…” when the people responsible are unnamed

On forme de {changer|to-change} au passé composé objet.

Formal “Quant à…” and conversational topic-first sentences with “on”

Thème, agent forme de {changer|to-change} au passé composé objet.

Build the passive and decide whether to identify who acted

For a completed change, use “a été” plus the participle, as in “L’horaire d’ouverture a été modifié par le responsable.”; present-tense “est modifié” would not express the same past event. The passive participle agrees with its subject, so “modifié” is masculine singular here because “horaire” is masculine. “Par le responsable” identifies who acted, while “L’horaire d’ouverture a été modifié.” leaves that information unstated and can sound evasive if responsibility is the question.

In “Quant à l'heure d'ouverture, nous l'avons modifiée.”, the object pronoun “l’” resumes the topic, and its position before “avons” requires the written feminine agreement “modifiée” with “heure”. Conversational “L'heure d'ouverture, on l'a changée.” also needs that object pronoun and written agreement; simply copying an English topic fragment can leave the French sentence incomplete. Formal questions can use inversion, as in “Pourquoi mon rendez-vous a-t-il été modifié ?”, whereas familiar speech commonly keeps statement word order, as in “Pourquoi mon rendez-vous a été changé ?”.

A formal exchange: question inversion, “nous” and respectful “vous”

A familiar exchange: statement-order questions, “on”, “ça” and “te”

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