Passive vs. Active, have been changed vs has changed

[Jorgo]

Could you tell me which of the sentences are correct, please? Or both are possible?

For example:

"Things have changed "
"Things have been changed"

In my native language, the second one would be more idiomatic, but the first one is also possible. Usually, the "things" are object of changing, therefore somebody has changed them, that's why the passive form would be more idiomatic in natural in my language. But in English, in movies I have heard a lot of times "the things have changed".

Likewise, today at our staff meeting I said:

"Since arrival of our new boss the working plan has been changed" (pointing out that there is a new main dog in the hood, who imposed changes of the plan).

I would like to hear some comments from your side, and I hope to have been clear enough to uderstand me.

 

[Raymott]

Could you tell me which of the sentences are correct, please? Or are both possible?

[STRIKE]For example:[/STRIKE] They are your sentences; they are not an example.

"Things have changed."
"Things have been changed."

They are both possible, depending on what aspect you want to stress.

 

[jutfrank]

The verb change can be used in two ways, roughly shown in the patterns below:

• something changes
  
• somebody changes something

The obvious difference is that in the first (intransitive) use, the subject of the verb is the thing itself, whereas in the second (transitive) use, the subject is another thing.

The second usually has a sense of agency, or if not technically agency then at least a sense of causation. When you use this, you imply that the subject of the verb plays a causal role in the change. The first doesn't have this meaning. The idea is often that the thing just changed on its own without any external help, but it could also be used if there was external help but you simply don't feel it is necessary to allude to it.

So as Raymott suggests, which one to use really depends on whether you mean to allude to this sense of agency/causality. For example, if I go back to my hometown after being away for ten years, I'll probably say The town has changed a lot. I don't really mean that it happened all on its own, of course, but I don't feel that it's necessary to bring any agents into it as I'm simply making a comment about an impression I have. If I say The town's been changed a lot, then this is more of a comment about the people who changed it—the town council or whoever.