Passive voice · CEFR B2 · Confident
Continuous passive — English passive voice
For a passive action in progress. The "being" is what makes it continuous, and it is the word people drop.
The shape
is / are / was / were being + third form
Say something is being done right now.
In Hindi
चल रहे passive काम के लिए। "being" ही इसे जारी बनाता है, और यही शब्द छूट जाता है।
CoCap explains every structure in both languages, because a rule you understand in Hindi is a rule you can use in English.
The mistake to fix first
The sentence Indian-English speakers actually produce, and the reason it is wrong.
| Commonly said | Correct English |
|---|---|
The road is repaired right now. | The road is being repaired right now. Without "being" it means the road is in a repaired state, not that work is going on. |
Learn these first
These come first. The rest of this makes more sense once they are automatic.
Questions people ask
- What is the continuous passive used for?
- For a passive action in progress. The "being" is what makes it continuous, and it is the word people drop. In practice: say something is being done right now.
- How do you form the continuous passive?
- is / are / was / were being + third form.
- What is the most common mistake with the continuous passive?
- Saying “The road is repaired right now.” instead of “The road is being repaired right now.”. Without "being" it means the road is in a repaired state, not that work is going on.
Where continuous passive fits
Where this structure sits in the ladder, and what surrounds it.
Continuous passive is a CEFR B2 structure — the confident band — and it belongs to passive voice. CoCap’s syllabus files every structure this way so you can learn in order instead of jumping between whatever a search happened to return.
Reading it is not the same as saying it.
CoCap turns this page into practice: Hindi sentence in, English sentence out, corrected one thing at a time. Free, no card.
Practise the continuous passive →