Passive Voice
कर्मवाच्य (Passive Voice)
English builds the passive with be + past participle, backgrounding the doer of an action much the way Hindi's own जाना-based passive construction does.
Grammar Comparison
व्याकरण तुलना
be + past participle ≈ Hindi's perfective participle + जाना auxiliary
The house is built. / The letter was written. (be + past participle)
घर बनाया जाता है। / पत्र लिखा गया था। (जाना, conjugated for tense, attaches to the perfective participle to carry the passive meaning)
Hindi forms its passive by taking the perfective participle of the main verb (बनाया, 'built'; लिखा, 'written') and adding a conjugated form of जाना ('to go') as an auxiliary — घर बनाया जाता है, literally 'the house built goes', functioning exactly like English's is built. English instead pairs a form of be with the past participle. Both languages background the doer of the action the same way — घर बनाया जाता है doesn't say by whom, any more than 'the house is built' does. Add से (by) plus the doer, matching English's by, only when it's actually worth mentioning.
Vocabulary
शब्दावली
| English | Pronunciation | Hindi |
|---|---|---|
| The house is built. | thuh hows iz bilt | घर बनाया जाता है।ghar banāyā jātā hai. |
| The letter was written. | thuh LET-er wuz RIT-en | पत्र लिखा गया था।patra likhā gayā thā. |
| English is spoken here. | ING-glish iz SPOH-ken heer | यहाँ अंग्रेज़ी बोली जाती है।yahāñ añgrezī bolī jātī hai. |
| The book was written by her. | thuh book wuz RIT-en by hur | यह किताब उसके द्वारा लिखी गई थी।yah kitāb uske dvārā likhī gaī thī. |