GrammatikPassiv

The passive voice (страдательный залог) is used when the focus is on the action itself or on the result, rather than on who performs the action.

Compare:

• Active: Студе́нт чита́ет кни́гу. (The student reads the book.)
• Passive: Кни́га чита́ется. (The book is being read.)

1. How the passive is formed

Russian has two important ways to form the passive:

• -ся verbs (reflexive passive)
• Short passive participles (often with быть)

These two constructions are often connected with verb aspect. As a useful general pattern:

• Imperfective verbs often use -ся to describe an ongoing, repeated, or general passive action.
• Perfective verbs often form short passive participles to describe the result of a completed action.

For example:

• строи́ть (to build, imperfective, ongoing) → До́м стро́ится. (The house is being built.)
• построи́ть (to build, perfective, completed) → До́м постро́ен. (The house has been built.)

2. Passive with -ся (reflexive passive)

Many verbs can express a passive meaning with -ся (or -сь after vowels).

This construction is especially common when the focus is on an ongoing, repeated, or general action, rather than on its completed result.

• Кни́га чита́ется. (The book is being read.)
• До́м стро́ится. (The house is being built.)
• Русский язы́к изуча́ется. (Russian is studied.)

The object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence, and the verb takes -ся.

Compare:

• Они́ стро́ят дом. (They are building a house.)
• До́м стро́ится. (The house is being built.)

This construction often does not mention who performs the action and is also natural in general statements.

With an imperfective verb such as строи́ть, the focus is on the process:

• До́м стро́ится. (The house is being built.)

To focus instead on the completed result, Russian often uses the corresponding perfective verb and a short passive participle, see the next section:

• До́м постро́ен. (The house has been built.)

3. Passive with short passive participles

Another important way to form the passive in Russian is with passive participles, especially in their short form.

A participle is a form derived from a verb, but it behaves in some ways like an adjective. A passive participle describes a person or thing that an action is performed on.

Short passive participles are especially common with perfective verbs, where they often describe the result of a completed action.

For example:

• построи́ть (to build, perfective) → постро́енный (built) → постро́ен (has been built)
• прочита́ть (to read, perfective) → прочи́танный (read) → прочи́тан (has been read)
• написа́ть (to write, perfective) → напи́санный (written) → напи́сан (has been written)

The full participle is used much like an adjective and usually describes a noun:

• постро́енный дом (a house that was built / a built house)
• прочи́танная кни́га (a book that was read)

The short participle is commonly used as the predicate of a passive sentence. It often describes the result of a completed action.

• До́м постро́ен. (The house is built / has been built.)
• Кни́га прочи́тана. (The book has been read.)
• Письмо́ напи́сано. (The letter is written / has been written.)

Compare the two constructions:

• До́м стро́ится. (The house is being built.) — process
• До́м постро́ен. (The house has been built.) — completed result

This contrast often follows the aspect pair:

• строи́ть (imperfective: process)
• построи́ть (perfective: completed action)

Short passive participles look similar to short adjectives because they also agree with the subject in gender and number:

• постро́ен (masculine)
• постро́ена (feminine)
• постро́ено (neuter)
• постро́ены (plural)

Examples:

• До́м постро́ен. (The house is built.)
• Кни́га прочи́тана. (The book has been read.)
• Окно́ откры́то. (The window is open / has been opened.)
• До́ма постро́ены. (The houses are built.)

In the present tense, the verb быть (to be) is normally omitted:

• До́м постро́ен. (The house is built / has been built.)

For the past and future, forms of быть are used:

• До́м был постро́ен. (The house was built / had been built.)
• До́м бу́дет постро́ен. (The house will be built.)

4. Adding "by whom" (the agent)

In Russian passive constructions, the agent is expressed with the Instrumental case, without a preposition.

• До́м постро́ен рабо́чими. (The house was built by workers.)
• Кни́га напи́сана авто́ром. (The book was written by the author.)

The same is also possible with -ся passive constructions:

• До́м стро́ится рабо́чими. (The house is being built by workers.)

However, passive sentences often leave the agent unmentioned because the focus is on the action or its result rather than on who performs it.

5. Process vs result

One of the most useful contrasts between the two passive constructions is ** process vs. result**.

The -ся passive often focuses on an ** ongoing, repeated, or general action**:

• До́м стро́ится. (The house is being built.)
• Здесь продаётся хлеб. (Bread is sold here.)

A short passive participle often focuses on the result of a completed action:

• До́м постро́ен. (The house is built / has been built.)
• Хлеб прода́н. (The bread has been sold.)

Compare:

• До́м стро́ится. — the building process is taking place
• До́м постро́ен. — the building is complete

This is not simply a difference between present and past tense. Both constructions can also be used with past or future time:

• До́м стро́ился. (The house was being built.)
• До́м бу́дет стро́иться. (The house will be under construction / will be built.)
• До́м был постро́ен. (The house was built / had been built.)
• До́м бу́дет постро́ен. (The house will be built.)

6. Full vs short passive participles

Passive participles can have both a full form and a short form. They are used differently.

The full form behaves much like an adjective: it modifies a noun and declines for gender, number, and case.

• прочи́танная кни́га (a book that has been read)
• постро́енный дом (a house that has been built)

Because full participles decline like adjectives, their endings change:

• прочи́танная кни́га (nominative)
• прочи́танной кни́ги (genitive)
• прочи́танную кни́гу (accusative)

The short form, by contrast, is normally used as the predicate of the sentence:

• Кни́га прочи́тана. (The book has been read.)
• До́м постро́ен. (The house has been built.)

So compare:

• постро́енный дом — full participle modifying a noun
• До́м постро́ен. — short participle used as the predicate

Full participles are especially common in written Russian, particularly when they are part of longer descriptive phrases.

7. When to use which form

• -ся passive → process, repeated action, or general fact
  Здесь продаётся хлеб. (Bread is sold here.)
• Short passive participle → result or completed action
  Хлеб прода́н. (The bread has been sold.)
• Full passive participle → modifies and describes a noun
  прода́нный хлеб (the bread that was sold)

A useful pattern to remember is:

• строи́ть → До́м стро́ится. (process)
• построи́ть → До́м постро́ен. (completed result)
• постро́енный дом (description of a noun)

8. Important notes

• Russian often prefers an active construction where English might naturally use the passive.
• Not every verb ending in -ся is passive. До́м стро́ится is passive, but Я умыва́юсь (I wash myself) is reflexive.
• The -ся passive is especially useful for ** processes and general actions**.
• Short passive participles are especially common with perfective verbs when expressing the result of a completed action.
• The contrast between the constructions is not an absolute rule. The exact form used depends on the verb, its aspect, and the meaning the speaker wants to express.

Summary

• The passive makes the person or thing affected by an action the ** subject of the sentence**.
• The two main passive constructions are:
  • -ся → often a process, repeated action, or general passive
  • short passive participle → often the result of a completed action
• This often corresponds to the aspect contrast:
  • imperfective → process
  • perfective → completed result
• The agent, when mentioned, is expressed with the Instrumental case.
• Full passive participles modify nouns and decline like adjectives.
• Short passive participles are normally used as predicates.