The active voice says who did what: Cervantes wrote the Quixote. The passive voice turns that around: the Quixote was written by Cervantes. Both sentences refer to the same event; they differ only in which participant the speaker chooses to make the subject. This choice exists in Spanish too — but Spanish makes it far less often than English does, and when Spanish wants to avoid naming the doer of an action, it usually reaches for the se-passive rather than the ser-passive. As a result, the ser-passive (el libro fue escrito por Cervantes) feels more formal, more journalistic, more written in Spanish than its English counterpart does in English.
This page lays out the active/passive distinction in Spanish, explains the three main strategies for "demoting" the agent (the ser-passive, the se-passive, and the active third-person plural), and gives you the rules of thumb for picking the right one.
What the passive voice is
In any transitive sentence — one where someone does something to something — there are two key participants: the agent (the doer) and the patient (the thing acted on). The active voice puts the agent in the grammatical subject slot. The passive voice puts the patient in the subject slot and either deletes the agent or expresses it with a by-phrase (por + agent, in Spanish).
| Voice | Structure | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Active | agent + verb + patient | Cervantes escribió el Quijote. |
| Passive (ser) | patient + ser + participio + (por + agent) | El Quijote fue escrito por Cervantes. |
| Passive (se) | se + verb + patient (as grammatical subject) | Se escribió el Quijote en el siglo XVII. |
The information conveyed is identical. What changes is the perspective: who is in the spotlight, what comes first, what gets foregrounded.
Marta firmó el contrato ayer.
Marta signed the contract yesterday. (Active — Marta is the topic.)
El contrato fue firmado ayer por Marta.
The contract was signed yesterday by Marta. (Passive with ser — the contract is the topic, the signing is presented as an event.)
Se firmó el contrato ayer.
The contract was signed yesterday. (Passive with se — the contract is the topic, the agent is irrelevant.)
Why English uses the passive freely and Spanish does not
English defaults to the be-passive almost casually: the door was opened, the meeting has been postponed, mistakes were made, the book is being printed. Spanish, by contrast, treats the ser-passive as a marked, slightly formal construction. In ordinary conversation, news bulletins, and most ordinary writing, Spanish prefers two other strategies:
Keep it active, even when English would passivize. Spanish reorders the sentence and lets the patient sit in front: El contrato lo firmó Marta (literally "the contract, Marta signed it"). This doubling of the object with a pronoun is everywhere in spoken Spanish.
Use the se-passive (se + verb + noun), where the agent is invisible: se firmó el contrato, se vendieron las casas, se construye un puente nuevo.
The result is that the ser-passive in Spanish ends up sounding noticeably more formal, more bookish, more newspaper-headline than its English counterpart. An English speaker writing Spanish who reaches for fue + participio every time English would say was -ed will write Spanish that reads stiff, translated, and bureaucratic.
When Spanish does use the ser-passive
The ser-passive has its place. It is the right choice when:
- The agent is genuinely important and named with por. (Otherwise, the se-passive does the job more efficiently.)
- The text is formal, journalistic, historical, or academic.
- The patient is a specific, definite entity, often a famous one.
La Sagrada Familia fue diseñada por Gaudí.
The Sagrada Familia was designed by Gaudí.
El acuerdo fue firmado por los dos presidentes ayer.
The agreement was signed by the two presidents yesterday.
La novela fue traducida al inglés en 1950.
The novel was translated into English in 1950.
In each of these, the agent is the kind of information a reader genuinely wants foregrounded — a famous architect, the two presidents, the date of a translation. The ser-passive lets the patient be the subject while the agent gets a prominent por-phrase.
For full coverage of how the ser-passive is formed — verb agreement, participle agreement, restrictions on which verbs can take it — see the dedicated Pasiva con ser page.
When Spanish uses the se-passive instead
The se-passive (se + verb in 3rd person + patient noun) is the default in Spanish whenever the agent is unknown, irrelevant, or generic. It is everywhere — in classified ads, signs, recipes, instructions, news headlines, weather reports, and ordinary speech.
Se venden pisos en el centro.
Apartments for sale in the centre. (Classified ad.)
Se habla español aquí.
Spanish spoken here. (Sign.)
Se cortan las cebollas en rodajas finas.
Slice the onions thinly. (Recipe.)
Se construirá un nuevo hospital el año que viene.
A new hospital will be built next year. (News.)
The verb agrees in number with the patient: se vende un piso (singular), se venden pisos (plural). The agent is not named — you cannot add por + agent to the se-passive in standard Spanish. If you need to name the agent, you have to switch to the ser-passive or recast as active.
The se-passive is covered in full on its own page: Pasiva refleja con se.
When Spanish keeps the sentence active
A huge proportion of English passives map most naturally to active Spanish sentences with a fronted object. Spanish is far more flexible than English about word order, so you can lead with the patient and still have an active verb.
A Juan lo despidieron la semana pasada.
Juan was fired last week. (Literally: 'Juan, they fired him last week.')
Esa película la dirigió Almodóvar.
That film was directed by Almodóvar. (Literally: 'That film, Almodóvar directed it.')
Los documentos los han revisado los abogados.
The documents have been reviewed by the lawyers.
These sentences open with the patient (A Juan, esa película, los documentos), drop in a doubling object pronoun (lo, la, los), and let the agent appear at the end. The result is active in form but passive in feel — exactly what English achieves with its periphrastic passive. This is the construction Spanish reaches for most often when an English speaker would have used a passive.
Closely related, when the agent is genuinely unknown or unimportant, Spanish often uses the active third-person plural with no explicit subject. This corresponds to English "they" used impersonally or to an English passive.
Me robaron la cartera en el metro.
My wallet got stolen on the metro. / They stole my wallet on the metro.
Dicen que va a llover.
It is said that it's going to rain. / They say it's going to rain.
Han cerrado la calle por obras.
The street has been closed for roadworks.
This third-person-plural-with-no-subject pattern is one of the most natural ways for Spanish to say "someone did X" without specifying who. English typically uses a passive ("the street has been closed"); Spanish reaches for the active han cerrado.
Decision guide
| Situation | Spanish prefers | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Agent unknown, irrelevant, or generic | se-passive | Se venden pisos. |
| Agent unknown, in everyday speech | Active 3rd-person plural | Me robaron la cartera. |
| Agent known and important, formal/written register | ser-passive with por | El libro fue escrito por Cervantes. |
| You want to lead with the patient but the agent matters | Active with fronted object + clitic doubling | Esa novela la escribió Cervantes. |
| Recipe, sign, instruction | se-passive | Se baten los huevos. |
| News headline about an event | ser-passive or se-passive | El presidente fue detenido ayer. / Se detuvo al presidente. |
A quick comparison with English
| English | Spanish (most natural) | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| The book was written by Cervantes. | El libro fue escrito por Cervantes. | ser-passive |
| Spanish is spoken here. | Aquí se habla español. | se-passive |
| My wallet was stolen. | Me robaron la cartera. | active 3pl |
| The contract was signed yesterday. | Se firmó el contrato ayer. / Firmaron el contrato ayer. | se-passive or active 3pl |
| The window has been broken. | Han roto la ventana. / La ventana está rota. | active 3pl or estar + participio (resultative) |
| Three languages are spoken in this region. | En esta zona se hablan tres idiomas. | se-passive |
Notice how often the ser-passive is not the right answer for translating an English passive. Defaulting to it is one of the clearest English-speaker tells in Spanish writing.
Comparison with English: a different default
English chose the passive as a comfortable default whenever the agent is unknown, unimportant, or rhetorically backgrounded. Spanish chose a richer set of alternatives — the se-passive, the active third-person plural, and active sentences with object fronting — so the ser-passive ended up specializing for the cases where the agent is genuinely worth naming. The grammar is the same in both languages; the defaults differ. Translating mechanically from English passive to Spanish ser-passive misses this difference and produces wooden Spanish.
The deeper point: Spanish dislikes leaving the agent in syntactic limbo when there is a smoother way to express it. Either name the agent prominently (por + agent with the ser-passive), or hide it entirely (se or 3pl active). The English compromise — passive with an unstated agent, the book was written — is the case Spanish handles least gracefully, which is why Spanish writers tend to rearrange those sentences entirely.
Common Mistakes
❌ Mi cartera fue robada en el metro.
Marginal — grammatically fine but stiff in spoken Spanish; a native would say it differently.
✅ Me robaron la cartera en el metro.
My wallet got stolen on the metro.
❌ Español es hablado aquí.
Awkward — the ser-passive of habitual states sounds stiff; the se-passive is standard.
✅ Aquí se habla español.
Spanish is spoken here.
❌ Se vendieron las casas por la empresa.
Incorrect — the se-passive cannot take a por + agent phrase.
✅ Las casas fueron vendidas por la empresa. / La empresa vendió las casas.
The houses were sold by the company.
❌ Está hablado español aquí.
Incorrect — for a generic 'X is spoken here' statement, use se-passive, not estar + participio.
✅ Aquí se habla español.
Spanish is spoken here.
❌ La ventana fue rota.
Acceptable only with an agent and a real event in mind ('was broken by someone'); for the result/state, use estar.
✅ La ventana está rota. (state) / Han roto la ventana. (event)
The window is broken. / They've broken the window.
Key takeaways
- The Spanish ser-passive exists, but it is markedly more formal than the English be-passive.
- When the agent is unknown or unimportant, prefer the se-passive or an active third-person plural.
- When you want to lead with the patient but the agent matters, prefer an active sentence with the object fronted and a doubling clitic.
- Reserve the ser-passive for written, formal, or journalistic contexts where the agent is genuinely worth naming (por + agent).
- Translating English passives mechanically produces stiff Spanish — always ask first whether a more natural construction fits.
Now practice Spanish
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Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- Pasiva con ser: el libro fue escritoB1 — The full ser-passive: ser in any tense + past participle agreeing with the subject + optional por + agent. Register: formal, written, journalistic.
- Pasiva refleja con se: se venden casasB1 — The se + 3rd-person construction where the verb agrees with the patient — the workhorse passive of everyday Spanish, far more common than the ser-passive in signs, ads, recipes, and journalism.
- Se impersonal: se vive bien aquíB1 — The impersonal se construction — se + always-singular verb — used for generic, agent-less statements where English reaches for 'one,' 'you,' 'they,' or 'people.' The default way to make a generalization in peninsular Spanish.
- Formación del participio pasadoA2 — How to form the past participle in Spanish: -ar verbs take -ado, -er/-ir verbs take -ido, with 15 high-frequency irregulars (hecho, dicho, visto, escrito…) that you have to memorise. Includes the rules for invariability with haber and agreement with nouns.
- Los muchos usos de 'se'B2 — Spanish 'se' wears at least eight different hats — reflexive, reciprocal, pseudoreflexive, le-to-se substitute, passive, impersonal, accidental, and intensifier. This page maps the whole territory.