Using a Passive Where Persian Uses an Active

Persian has a productive passive, usually built with a past participle or nonverbal base plus شدن: درخواست بررسی شد “the application was reviewed.” The error is not using that passive at all; it is translating every English passive into it. In conversation and much neutral prose, Persian often chooses an active clause with an explicit agent, an omitted generic third-plural subject, or an intransitive change-of-state predicate instead.

Voice choice follows discourse organization. If the human actor is relevant, name it and use an active verb. If the actor is generic or institutionally obvious, an active third plural such as بررسی می‌کنند can background it. If the event is naturally viewed as a change without an agent, use شدن، شکستن، باز شدن anticausatively. Retain the passive when the affected participant or formal procedure genuinely deserves to be the grammatical center.

Choose among Four Structures

The generic third plural is syntactically active: its affected object keeps را, and the plural ending refers to unspoken people. The structure is explained on Avoiding the Passive with Third-Plural Actives.

Common Mistakes

1. Hiding a Relevant Known Agent

When the police, municipality, committee, or named person is newsworthy, an English passive may leave that agent in a by-phrase. Persian commonly promotes the same participant to ordinary subject position.

The warning sentence is not ungrammatical. It simply answers “what happened to the route?” The correction answers “what did the police do?” Choose according to topic, not a ban on توسط.

2. Using a Heavy Passive for an Ordinary Service Encounter

At a clinic, bank, or office, staff are obvious but need not be named. Persian conversation often uses a null third-plural active.

English needs either passive is required or vague they. Persian verbal agreement already licenses the unspoken human group.

3. Dropping را When Switching to Generic Third Plural

Because the Persian alternative is active, its definite affected participant remains a direct object and normally takes را. Do not retain passive subject syntax with an active plural verb.

The ending ـند belongs to the backgrounded actors, not the package. This diagnostic reliably distinguishes arbitrary active from passive syntax.

4. Inventing a Human Agent for a Natural Change

An anticausative presents a change without asserting an external causer. Wind, pressure, wear, or an internal process can be expressed in an adverbial phrase without a human-style توسط agent.

شدن can likewise express a change: در باز شد، چراغ خاموش شد، هوا سرد شد. These are not automatically syntactic passives. The diagnostics appear on Passive, Anticausative, and Result Ambiguity.

5. Replacing a Natural Lexical Predicate with a Calqued Passive

Persian often lexicalizes an affected event in a compound or intransitive predicate. English passive morphology does not require Persian passive morphology.

Likewise, depending on meaning, English “was lost” may be گم شد, and “was delayed” may be تأخیر کرد for a person/vehicle or با تأخیر انجام شد for an event. Learn the Persian predicate, not only the English voice label.

6. Assuming the Passive Is Always Unnatural

The correction strategy can itself be overapplied. Formal procedures, scientific descriptions, and texts centered on an affected entity often favor the passive. A generic active would add an unnecessary human perspective.

These sentences are not interchangeable corrections in every paper. They choose different topics. Passive is warranted when the experimental procedure and affected samples matter more than personnel.

7. Mixing Passive Syntax with Active Spelling and Object Marking

A learner may keep را from an active object, use singular passive می‌شود, and also break می‌ with a space. Choose one grammatical structure and spell its prefix correctly.

A formal passive repair is also possible: درخواست‌ها معمولا ظرف دو روز بررسی می‌شود. Inanimate plural agreement may be singular in standard Persian; the absence of را confirms that درخواست‌ها is the passive subject.

Register and Agent Phrases

توسط is useful in formal prose when a passive agent must be expressed, especially to assign institutional responsibility. Repeating it in casual description produces bureaucratic tone. In neutral conversation, promote an important agent to subject; omit a generic human subject with third-plural agreement; or use an intransitive change predicate.

The best formal rendering may use passives; the most natural service-counter retelling uses active plural forms. Translation quality depends on matching genre and topic.

Key Takeaways

• Keep the passive when the patient or formal procedure is genuinely the topic.
• Name a relevant actor as subject instead of burying it in توسط.
• Use null third-plural active for generic or institutionally obvious human actors; retain را on specific objects.
• Use anticausative or lexical predicates for changes not organized around a human agent.
• Register matters: bureaucratic passives are useful in formal prose but often heavy in conversation.