In the active voice, the grammatical subject is the participant presented as carrying out an action, experiencing something, or occupying a state. La kuracisto ekzamenis la pacienton puts the doctor in subject position; its passive counterpart puts the patient there. Esperanto expresses this contrast regularly in both finite clauses and its six-participle system.
What active voice means
An active subject is not always a deliberate human “doer.” It may be an experiencer, an instrument-like cause, or simply the entity whose state the verb describes:
Marta verkis la finan raporton dum la semajnfino.
Marta wrote the final report over the weekend.
Mi aŭdis rapidajn paŝojn en la koridoro.
I heard quick footsteps in the corridor.
La ŝlosilo malfermas ankaŭ la malantaŭan pordon.
The key also opens the back door.
In all three, the subject is the starting point from which the clause presents the situation. Only Marta is necessarily an intentional agent. “Active” therefore names a grammatical alignment, not a claim about intention or physical activity.
With a transitive verb, the affected or perceived participant is commonly an object marked by -n. Esperanto's case endings preserve the roles even when information structure changes the word order:
La proponon la komitato aprobis sen kontraŭvoĉoj.
The proposal, the committee approved without any votes against it.
Here la komitato remains the active subject and la proponon the object. Fronting the object emphasizes it; it does not turn the clause passive. The neutral order is subject–verb–object, covered further under Neutral SVO Order.
Active and passive: a minimal contrast
Voice changes which participant becomes the grammatical subject and usually which participant serves as the discourse topic.
La teknikisto riparis la presilon antaŭ la tagmanĝo.
The technician repaired the printer before lunch.
La presilo estis riparita de la teknikisto antaŭ la tagmanĝo.
The printer was repaired by the technician before lunch.
The active sentence foregrounds la teknikisto. The passive sentence foregrounds la presilo and, if the agent is mentioned, introduces it with de. The event itself can be the same. Voice is therefore not a difference in truth conditions here; it is a difference in grammatical perspective.
Active voice is the neutral, frequent choice in both (informal) conversation and (formal) prose when the actor is known and relevant. Passive voice is useful when the patient is already the topic, when the actor is unknown, or when deliberately withholding the actor matters. It is not inherently more educated or more formal.
Transitive, intransitive, and state verbs
Transitive verbs can normally support an active–passive alternation because they have an object that can become the passive subject. Intransitive verbs do not have such an object:
La trajno alvenis dek minutojn malfrue.
The train arrived ten minutes late.
La akcidento okazis tuj post noktomezo.
The accident happened just after midnight.
Alveni and okazi are active in form, but neither sentence contains an object to promote. Esperanto therefore does not form ordinary passives meaning “was arrived” or “was happened.” English sometimes calls clauses of this kind “active” merely because they are not passive; the important Esperanto fact is their valency.
State verbs also use ordinary active finite endings:
Ŝi konas la urbon multe pli bone ol mi.
She knows the city much better than I do.
The subject ŝi is an experiencer or knower rather than an agent. See Transitive and Intransitive Verbs for the object patterns of individual verbs.
The active half of the participle system
Esperanto combines a voice consonant with a phase vowel. Active participles contain -nt-; passive participles contain -t- without n.
| Phase | Active | Passive | Core contrast |
|---|---|---|---|
| ongoing or repeated | -ant- | -at- | one acting / one or something being acted on |
| completed | -int- | -it- | one having acted / one or something acted on |
| prospective | -ont- | -ot- | one about to act / one or something about to be acted on |
La raportisto intervjuanta la urbestron laboras por loka radio.
The reporter interviewing the mayor works for a local radio station.
La urbestro intervjuata de la raportisto respondis tre singarde.
The mayor being interviewed by the reporter answered very cautiously.
This is the decisive minimal contrast: intervjuanta modifies the interviewer, whereas intervjuata modifies the person receiving the interview. English often uses word order and separate relative clauses to make this clear; Esperanto encodes the voice distinction inside the participle.
The phase is relative to the reference point, not an absolute English tense translation:
La kunvenintaj volontuloj dividis la taskojn inter si.
The volunteers who had gathered divided the tasks among themselves.
La forirontaj pasaĝeroj jam atendis ĉe la pordego.
The passengers about to depart were already waiting at the gate.
At the time of dividing, gathering was complete; at the time of waiting, departure was still prospective. The forms do not mean simply “past active” and “future active” in every context.
Adjectival, adverbial, and nominal active participles
The participial stem takes regular Esperanto endings. With -a, it describes a noun and agrees in number and case. With -e, it presents a secondary action by the main clause's subject. With -o, it names a participant, normally a person.
Mi salutis la alvenantajn gastojn ĉe la enirejo.
I greeted the arriving guests at the entrance.
Fininte la prezenton, Nora respondis la demandojn de la publiko.
Having finished the presentation, Nora answered the audience's questions.
La gajninto dankis sian teamon kaj la volontulojn.
The winner thanked their team and the volunteers.
In fininte, the understood subject must be the subject of the main clause: Nora both finished and answered. An English dangling participle such as “Having finished the presentation, the questions began” cannot be copied into Esperanto without creating the same logical mismatch.
Nominal forms may become established vocabulary. Parolanto can mean a person currently speaking or a speaker in a broader role; gajninto denotes the person who has won. Their active voice remains semantically visible even when usage has conventionalized the noun.
Analytic active forms with esti
An active adjective participle can be the complement of esti. The finite form of esti locates the reference point; the participle gives the action's phase relative to it.
Kiam vi telefonis, mi estis veturanta hejmen.
When you called, I was driving home.
Je la oka ŝi estis jam sendinta la dosieron.
By eight she had already sent the file.
— Ĉu vi estas elironta? — Jes, sed mi unue fermos la fenestrojn.
— Are you about to go out? — Yes, but I'll close the windows first.
These compounds are fully grammatical, but simple tenses are normally enough when no phase contrast needs emphasis: mi laboris hieraŭ, not automatically mi estis laboranta hieraŭ; ŝi jam sendis ĝin, not automatically ŝi estas sendinta ĝin. Esperanto is not required to reproduce every English progressive or perfect with an analytic participle.
Long chains are theoretically possible, but forms such as estis estinta verkanta burden the reader and are avoided in normal prose. Rewrite with a simple verb, an adverb such as jam, or a subordinate clause.
Keeping complements with active participles
An active participle retains the verb's valency. A transitive base can keep its accusative object, and a verb requiring a preposition keeps that preposition:
La kuracisto ekzamenanta mian filon klarigis ĉiun paŝon.
The doctor examining my son explained every step.
Parolante pri la buĝeto, ŝi montris tri eblajn ŝparojn.
Speaking about the budget, she showed three possible savings.
Agreement belongs to an adjectival participle itself—la kuracistoj ekzamenantaj la infanojn—while its object independently takes -n. For long modifiers, place the participial phrase after its noun or expand it into a relative clause. This prevents the regular morphology from becoming hard to parse.
Active voice with an unspecified actor
English often uses a passive where Esperanto naturally uses active oni:
Oni renovigos la bibliotekon dum la somero.
The library will be renovated during the summer.
This active clause does not identify the renovators. Oni means an unspecified person or group and takes a singular verb form. The passive La biblioteko estos renovigita dum la somero is also grammatical; choose between them according to topic. Active oni presents an unspecified human actor, while the passive keeps la biblioteko as subject.
Common Mistakes
Copying the English progressive auxiliary
❌ Hodiaŭ mi estas laboras en la oficejo.
Incorrect — Esperanto cannot combine estas with a finite -as verb this way.
✅ Hodiaŭ mi laboras en la oficejo.
I am working in the office today.
Use the simple present unless the internal phase needs special emphasis; then mi estas laboranta is possible.
Losing the accusative in an active clause
❌ La redaktoro korektis la artikolo hieraŭ.
Incorrect — the article is the direct object and needs -n.
✅ La redaktoro korektis la artikolon hieraŭ.
The editor corrected the article yesterday.
Mismatching active and passive participles
❌ La raportisto verkita la artikolon kontrolis la nomojn.
Incorrect — verkita is passive, but the reporter wrote the article.
✅ La raportisto verkinta la artikolon kontrolis la nomojn.
The reporter who had written the article checked the names.
Building a passive from an intransitive verb
❌ La renkontiĝo estis okazita en la urbodomo.
Incorrect — okazi is intransitive and has no object to become a passive subject.
✅ La renkontiĝo okazis en la urbodomo.
The meeting took place in the town hall.
Key Takeaways
- Active voice makes the actor, experiencer, cause, or state-holder the subject; it does not imply deliberate action.
- Active participles use -ant-, -int-, and -ont-; passive participles use -at-, -it-, and -ot-.
- The final -a, -e, or -o determines whether a participle is adjectival, adverbial, or nominal.
- Compound active forms are productive, but simple tenses are usually clearer unless a phase contrast matters.
- A participle retains the complement pattern of its base verb.
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Start learning Esperanto →Related Topics
- The Six Participles: A System MapB1 — Map Esperanto's six participles by voice and relative time, then use them as adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and compound verb forms.
- Active Present Participle -ANT-B1 — Learn how -ant- presents the doer of an action while that action is in progress or regularly repeated.
- Compound Active TensesB1 — Combine esti with active participles to express ongoing, completed, or prospective action relative to a chosen reference point.
- The Esti-PassiveB1 — Form the standard Esperanto passive with esti plus an agreeing passive participle, while keeping tense and event phase separate.
- Transitive and Intransitive VerbsA2 — Learn which verbs license a direct object, which require another construction, and how Esperanto systematically changes valency.
- Neutral SVO OrderA2 — Use subject–verb–object as Esperanto's unmarked order, and depart from it only when context gives the new order a clear discourse purpose.