explain it in English

In English, "passing by reference" refers to how function parameters are handled in memory during execution. The advantage is that:

1. **Efficiency**: Large or complex data structures are passed as references, avoiding unnecessary copying, which can save memory and speed up performance, especially when modifying the structure.

2. **Avoidance of deep copying**: If an object contains nested objects, passing a reference allows direct manipulation without creating multiple copies.

3. **Persistence**: Changes made within functions persist outside, making it useful for operations where state needs to be retained after the function call.

4. **Ease of implementing advanced operations**: Operations like sorting arrays can naturally work with references since they don't need to return new copies.

5. **Reduced parameter overhead**: For large data sets, passing just a reference eliminates the necessity to repeatedly transfer the whole data.

However, care must be taken, as unintended modifications can occur if not managed properly.