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Is it true that they have same meaning ? I tried with google translate and it gave me same meaning but "The dog chased the cat" is active voice and "The cat chased the dog" is passive voice.

The dog chased the cat

The dog = subject.
Chased = verb.
The cat = object.

The cat chased the dog

The dog = subject.
Chased = verb.
The cat = object.

My Questions are :

1. So how about if I want to say :

The cat = subject.
Chased = verb.
The dog = object.

2. And what's the difference between "The cat chased the dog" and "The cat was chased by the dog".

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    No that is not passive voice. Active: The dog chased the cat. Passive: The cat was chased by the dog. In both the dog is doing the chasing. If you search on "passive" on this site you will find several related questions which should be helpful. – user3169 Sep 25 '14 at 6:43
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This has absolutely nothing to do with verb tenses or active or passive voice.

The usual, normal, interpretation of those sentences is:

The dog chased the cat. dog = subject, cat = object
The cat chased the dog. cat = subject, dog = object

Only by unnaturally stressing the first part of the sentence, and providing a whole lot of context, it would be possible to interpret the sentences as having the object coming first.

In English, the position of the subject and object relative to the verb is immensely important. In other (usually inflected) languages, it would not be very difficult to switch the place of object and subject without changing the meaning of the sentence, but in English, that is a very tough, if not impossible, feat.

As for the passive voice, that is a whole different matter. Your sentences would be transformed like this:

The dog chased the cat. => The cat was chased by the dog.
The cat chased the dog. => The dog was chased by the cat.

You are correct in noticing that in the passive versions of the sentences, subject and object are inverted, but just inverting them does not make the sentence passive! You need to change the verb as well!

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    I thought it was passive voice, because google translate it to Indonesia as Kucing dikejar anjing which means The cat was chased by the dog. and plus I read from this link it says "The dog chased the cat" and "The cat chased the dog" can under no circumstances have the same meaning. – mockie Sep 25 '14 at 8:30
  • Google Translate is handy but it gets stuff wrong all the time - try translating a paragraph from your native language to another language and back and see how mangled it gets. And that link is basically confirming oerkelens answer - "the cat chased the dog" and "the dog chased the cat" have different meanings. If they were passive and active forms of the same sentence they would have the same meaning. – Nigel Harper Sep 25 '14 at 11:21
  • If they were passive and active forms of the same sentence they would have the same meaning any example @NigelHarper ? sorry, I still don't get it :( – mockie Sep 25 '14 at 13:43
  • "The dog chased the cat" and "The cat was chased by the dog" are passive and active forms of the same sentence - they mean the same thing. "The dog chased the cat" and "The cat chased the dog" are both active sentences with different meanings. – Nigel Harper Sep 25 '14 at 14:38

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