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SUMMARY 4

TOPIC: THE PASSIVE VOICE


GENERAL EXPLANATION

When we want to give more importance to the action and not to the one who has carried it out,
we use the passive voice. The passive voice is formed with the verb "to be" and the past participle.

Subject + auxiliary verb (to be) + verb past participle

Examples:

They made this car in 1963. (active voice)   This car was made in 1963. (passive voice)

He ate all of the cookies. (active voice)   All of the cookies were eaten. (passive voice)

Note: The subject of a passive verb corresponds to the object of an active verb.

Composition

To transform an active to a passive sentence we take into account the following points:

1. The object of active sentence becomes the subject of passive.

2. The main verb is replaced by the auxiliary “to be”, at the same time, together with the main
verb in participle.

3. The subject of the main sentence becomes an agent complement of the passive.

4. If we make mention in the sentence of the subject that performs the action (agent subject), this
will normally be preceded by the preposition “by”.

VERB TENSE STRUCTURE EXAMPLE


PRESENT SIMPLE Spanish is spoken here.
am/are/is + vpp

PRESENT CONTINUOUS am/are/is v+ing + vpp Your questions are being answered.


FUTURE (WILL) will be + vpp It will be painted by next week.
FUTURE (GOING TO) am/are/is going to be + Terry is going to be made redundant
vpp next year.
PAST SIMPLE was/were + vpp We were invited to the party, but we
didn’t go.
PAST CONTINUOUS was/were v+ing + vpp The hotel room was being
cleaned when we got back from
shopping.
PRESENT PERFECT have/has been + vpp The President of America has been
shot.
PAST PERFECT had been + vpp When he got home he found that all
of his money had been stolen.
FUTURE PERFECT will have been + vpp Our baby will have been born before

Teacher James Contact: (55) 83281274 / jg175120@gmail.com


Christmas.

Aspects to consider:

In the forms of ‘future progressive’ (will be being + pp) and ‘perfect progressive’ (has been being +
pp) its use is not very common.

To say who was doing the action or what was causing it, use 'by'.

Examples:

This house was built by my mother. 


Washington was bombed by Pakistan. 

The passive voice is usually used when it is unknown or not interested in mentioning who or what
does the action.

Examples:

German is spoken here. 


When was this house built?
A lot of songs have been written about love.
The room will be cleaned by the housekeeper.
The book was written by Mark Twain.

Functions

We use the passive voice when we do not know who has performed the action.

Examples:

A civilian has been killed.


The car was stolen.

We use the passive voice when we want to give more importance to what happened, than to who
performed the action or when we do not want to say who performed it.

Examples:

The letter was delivered yesterday.


A mistake was made.

Note: We cannot use the passive voice with intransitive verbs like "die", "arrive" or "go".
Intransitive verbs are verbs that do not carry a direct object.

VOCABULARY TO CONSIDER:

PHRASAL VERBS EXAMPLES


DOZEN
Teacher James Only a few dozen survived.
Contact: (55) 83281274 / jg175120@gmail.com
SINK I felt my heart sink.
TUITION I sent the check for spring tuition.
Teacher James Contact: (55) 83281274 / jg175120@gmail.com

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