Avoiding the Passive in French

The passive voice page covers how the French passive is built: être plus a past participle, the participle agreeing with the subject, the agent introduced by par or de. That is the machinery. This page is about the fact that French usually declines to use it.

The difference is one of frequency, not of grammar. English uses the passive as its ordinary way of not naming a doer, and does so dozens of times a page. French finds the full être passive heavy, reserves it largely for formal writing, and reaches instead for one of three lighter structures. Learn those three and your French stops sounding translated.

Why the dodges exist

Count what an English passive is usually doing. Nine times in ten it is not foregrounding the object at all; it is hiding the subject, because the subject is unknown (my bag was stolen), irrelevant (the shop has been closed), or everybody (French is spoken here). French has a dedicated word for an unknown, irrelevant or general subject, and it is on. Given that, a passive is redundant.

So the question to ask of every English passive is not "how do I build this in French?" but "who is my subject going to be?" The answer decides the structure.

Strategy 1: on + active verb

On is a third-person singular subject pronoun meaning "one / people / they / someone", and it takes an ordinary active verb. It is far and away the commonest way French renders an agentless English passive.

• On parle français ici. (French is spoken here.)
• On a annulé le concert. (The concert has been cancelled.)
• On construit beaucoup de logements dans cette région. (A lot of housing is being built in this region.)
• On m'a volé mon sac. (My bag was stolen.) - literally "someone stole my bag from me".

Two mechanical points. On always takes the third-person singular verb form, however many people it stands for: on va, on fait, on a dit. And in careful writing the past participle after on stays masculine singular (on est allé), even though the plural agreement (on est allés) is normal in speech when on clearly means nous.

The limitation is absolute: on cannot take an agent. The moment you want to say by whom, on is out, and you either recast the sentence as an ordinary active one or use a true par passive.

• Wrong: On a écrit cette lettre par Marie.
• Right: Marie a écrit cette lettre. (Marie wrote the letter.) - active recast.
• Right: Cette lettre a été écrite par Marie. (The letter was written by Marie.) - true passive, agent named.

Strategy 2: the pronominal se passive

The second dodge makes an ordinary transitive verb reflexive with se and gives it a passive sense. The thing acted upon is the grammatical subject, and the verb agrees with it, but no agent is ever named or nameable.

• Ça ne se dit pas. (That isn't said. / You don't say that.)
• Le vin blanc se boit frais. (White wine is drunk chilled.)
• Ce mot s'écrit avec deux n. (That word is spelt with two n's.)
• Les billets se vendent en ligne. (Tickets are sold online.)
• Ce plat se prépare la veille. (This dish is made the day before.)

Notice what these sentences have in common: every one of them is a general truth, custom or property, not a report of an event. That is the whole domain of the se passive. It answers "how is this done, generally?" and nothing else.

When the se passive is impossible

Two hard limits, and English speakers trip on both.

First, the subject must be inanimate. With a human or animal subject, se is read as a real reflexive or reciprocal, and the meaning changes underneath you.

• Les enfants se lavent. = The children wash themselves. Never "the children are washed".
• Ils se regardent. = They look at each other. Never "they are looked at".
• For the passive sense you need on: On lave les enfants tous les soirs. (The children are washed every evening.)

Second, it wants a habitual truth, not a dated event. A one-off action with a specific time pushes you back to on.

• Odd: La maison s'est vendue hier.
• Natural: On a vendu la maison hier. (The house was sold yesterday.)
• But fine as a general property: Les maisons se vendent bien en ce moment. (Houses are selling well at the moment.)

Strategy 3: se faire + infinitive

The third dodge is the one most learners have never met, and it fills a real gap. Se faire plus an infinitive puts the affected person in the subject slot, which is exactly what an English passive does, and unlike on it will happily take an agent with par.

• Il s'est fait voler son portefeuille. (He had his wallet stolen.)
• Elle s'est fait renverser par une voiture. (She was knocked down by a car.)
• Je me suis fait avoir. (I got had. / I was taken in.)
• Nous nous sommes fait arrêter à la frontière. (We were stopped at the border.)

The participle fait in this construction is invariable: elle s'est fait renverser, not "faite". It is followed directly by an infinitive, which is what blocks the agreement.

There is a formal cousin, se voir + infinitive, and it is the one structure that lets an indirect-object person become a grammatical subject:

• Il s'est vu offrir un poste. (He was offered a job.)
• Elle s'est vu refuser l'entrée. (She was refused entry.)

This is written register, not conversation. In speech you would still say on lui a offert un poste.

The hard rule: no passive on an indirect object

Here is the point that has no English parallel, so it has to be learned rather than felt. French can only promote a direct object to passive subject. An indirect object can never become one.

Take dire quelque chose à quelqu'un. The thing said is the direct object; the person is the indirect object, tagged by à. English cheerfully promotes the person anyway:

• I was told the truth.
• She was offered a job.
• We were asked to wait.
• He was phoned yesterday.

None of these has a French passive equivalent. Je suis dit, j'ai été dit, elle a été offerte un poste and il a été téléphoné are not stiff or formal French; they are not French. The verbs that behave this way are the whole à quelqu'un family: dire, donner, demander, offrir, promettre, conseiller, permettre, envoyer, répondre, téléphoner, obéir.

The everyday fix is always the same. Switch to on, and turn the English subject into an object pronoun:

Watch which pronoun you need. Me, te, nous, vous look the same either way, but the third person splits: a direct object takes le / la / les, an indirect object takes lui / leur. Since these verbs all take à, it is on lui a offert, never "on l'a offert" when you mean the recipient.

One fossil, purely so you recognise it: a handful of à-verbs did allow a passive in older French and the survival is obéir, as in il est obéi de tous (he is obeyed by everyone). It is a museum piece. Do not generalise from it.

Choosing the strategy

Worked examples

• On a retrouvé les clés dans la voiture. (The keys were found in the car.) - one event, no agent, so on.
• Le champagne se sert bien frais. (Champagne is served well chilled.) - a custom about a thing, so se.
• On m'a conseillé de partir tôt. (I was advised to leave early.) - conseiller à quelqu'un, indirect object, so on with me.
• Elle s'est fait voler son téléphone dans le métro. (She had her phone stolen on the underground.) - the person is affected, fait invariable.
• Cette église a été construite au douzième siècle. (This church was built in the twelfth century.) - formal written register with a real date, so a true passive is fine here.
• Ça ne se fait pas. (That's not done.) - a social rule, the classic se passive.
• On leur a promis une réponse. (They were promised an answer.) - promettre à quelqu'un, so leur.

Common mistakes English speakers make

The biggest single error is building an English passive word for word onto an indirect object: "je suis dit", "elle a été donné un livre". These are not merely clumsy, they are ungrammatical, and the cure is mechanical - if the English subject is the person who received something, start again with on and an object pronoun. The second error is choosing le / la / les where the à-verb demands lui / leur, giving "on l'a offert un poste" instead of on lui a offert un poste. The third is stretching the se passive to animate subjects, where it flips to a genuine reflexive: "les enfants se lavent" says the children wash themselves, so use on lave les enfants. The fourth is agreeing the participle in se faire: it is elle s'est fait renverser, invariable, never "s'est faite". Finally, do not over-correct into the opposite habit and write a full être passive everywhere just because it maps neatly onto the English. Where no agent is named, on is the natural French, and a page full of a été reads like a document rather than a person.

See also

• The passive voice page covers how the true être passive is built, the participle agreement and the par / de choice for the agent.
• The reflexive verbs page covers the se conjugation and the être auxiliary that the pronominal passive borrows.
• The object pronouns page covers the me / te / lui / leur split that decides whether an on sentence is right.
• The subject pronouns page covers on alongside the other subject pronouns.
• The French grammar cheatsheet covers the whole A1-B2 grammar map at a glance.