Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[iloveyou]

Hello,

My textbook says
'I always eat spaghetti for my luch. Spaghetti is love by me"
--> should be changed "I love spaghetti"

I remember seeing love in passive voice in such sentences as
"This book is loved by millions of people"

So, when can I use 'love' in passive voice and when I can't?
and, spaghetti is loved by me sounds awkward?

Thanks always.
Yun

[redset]

Hey Yun

Basically this is how the passive and active voices work:

When you want to talk about what a person or thing does, we use the active voice.
When you want to talk about what happens to a person or thing, we use the passive voice.

Because you're talking about how you enjoy spaghetti, you're the subject - so you use the active voice, "I love spaghetti." (This is the way we usually talk about ourselves and things we do.) When you say "spaghetti is loved by millions of people", you're talking about something that happens to spaghetti. You can easily rewrite this in the active voice to shift the focus to the millions of people instead, and what they do (they love spaghetti!).

You just have to be aware of what you're trying to say. You could also say "my family loves spaghetti", or "spaghetti is loved by my family", but how do you decide? It depends on your focus - are you talking about the fact that your family loves something (spaghetti), or the fact that spaghetti is loved by someone? We're usually doing the former, which is why the active voice is more common. The passive form isn't wrong, but when it's less suitable it ends up sounding awkward, like you noticed.