Converting French Reflexive to Passive

Changer le réfléchi en passif


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Reflexive verbs indicate that their subjects are performing some action on themselves, but what about when the subject doesn’t matter so much as the action itself? You have two options:

1. Use the passive reflexive (e.g., ça se voit)

2. Convert the sentence into the passive voice – but in doing so, you have to lose the reflexive.

Par exemple…

Reflexive		Passive

Je me réveille à 10h.		Je suis réveillé à 10 h.
I wake up at 10 am.		I am woken up at 10 am.

Il se rase le matin.		Il est rasé le matin.
He shaves in the morning.		He gets shaved in the morning.

How to change reflexive to passive

First, remove the reflexive pronoun.

Then consider the tense used in the original and replace it with the equivalent passive voice:

conjugate être into that tense or mood – in the above examples, it’s in the present
add the past participle of the main verb
make the past participle agree with the subject

Reflexive to passive in other tenses and moods

	Reflexive	Passive
Passé composé	Je me suis réveillé	J’ai été réveillé
Imperfect	Je me réveillais	J’étais réveillé
Pluperfect	Je m’étais réveillé	J’avais été réveillé
Future	Je me réveillerai	Je serai réveillé
Conditional	Je me réveillerais	Je serais réveillé
Subjunctive	… que je me réveille	… que je sois réveillé