Welcome to englishgrammarspot this lesson is about the passive voice.
In this lesson I'm going to show you
when to use passive and how to form
a passive.So we going to do it the other way round.
I'm going to show you how to form a passive for
every tense in the English language. Take a look
at the following sentences: I have closed the door.
The door has been closed by me. The first sentence is an
active sentence, the second sentence
is a passive sentence.
Now usually we turn active sentences into
passive sentences so what we do is,
the object of the active sentence becomes that subject of the passive
sentence
and the subject of the active sentence becomes the
object of the passive sentence, so
I has become me and the door
has become the subject of the passive sentence.
Now when do we use
a passive? I'm going to tell you some technicalities
be not alarmed the passive is not hard
but there are some things that you need to know. We use
a passive when the subject of a verb
so in the example before, is more
important than the person or thing carrying it out
the object. So in the example before the door was more important
than me closing it.
The object of the passive form is usually left out because is not important
or as in my example preceded by the way it 'by'
When we want to change
an active sentence into a passive as I already said,
the object if the active sentence becomes that subject
of the passive sentence. The passive
always need to contain a form of the auxiliary verb to be
and the past participle. Remember the English language has
regular and irregular verbs. So for the regular verbs
a past aprticiple is made by adding 'ed' to the base from of the verb
or we use its own unique form, so for
instance take - took - taken the past participle will be
taken know the auxiliary verb
takes the tense if the verb in the active sentence, so when we change an
active sentence into passive we need to put
verb to be in the tense of
the active sentence. The main verb in the active sentence is turned into
past participle. Now I don't hopethat your head is spinning because it's
really quite easy
I'll show you. So we are going to turn
an active present simple into a passive
present simple. She buys tomatoes
Now remember we're going to swap
she and tomatoes around so we're going to start with tomatoes.
A passive is made
by the verb to be and the past participle so
we need to pick the correct form of the verb to be for tomatoes
which is 'are' here so Tomatoes are bought by her.
Remember: to buy - bought - bought. Another example the present continuous.
An active present continuous is They are taking down the police station.
For the passive form
we need to maintain that continuous form that's quite hard
so we need either to use to use: am, are or is
and then the continuous form being
and the past participle. Don't forget to put
being into a continuous passive when your active sentence was
present continuous you have to maintain that
you can't swap tenses. The police station is being taken down.
So please note that we've put
the police station into the slots of the subject
in the passive sentence as it is important by whom
the police station is being taken down.
So again don't forget to put in being.
Let's have a look at present perfect an active
present perfect is: I havve painted the door so we are going to change it into a
present perfect passive and remember the door has to become
the subject. So a passive is made by
have or has and then a form of to be
and since it is perfect here we need to use the
perfect form of the verb to be so here it is been
and the past participle of the verb to paint.
The door has been painted.
So pay attention, in the active form it was I have
but since in the passive form
the door has become third person singular you need to use
has. Now the past tenses, first the past simple active:
They sold the car yesterday.
Remember just as in the present simple we need to use
a form of 'to be' so was or
were and the possible participle.
The car was sold yesterday. Past continuous active
They were cleaning the house.
So to make it into a passive we will make the
house the subject of the passive form.
Remeber don't forget to put in being
Passive: was or were + being
and the past participle. The house was being cleaned
it was done by them, but that's not important
the past perfect, the active past perfect
they had given him a job and the passive
we use had + been justi as in the present perfect
and past participle to give gave given.
He had been given a job.
Now I'm going to take you through the future tenses
This simple future: He will give you his number.
For the passive we use will and then the infinitive form
of the verb to be, the base form and the past partciple
You will be given his number.
The past future: He assured me he would post the letter.
That is a past future.
For the passive we use would and the past participle:
He assured me that the letter would be posted.
And now the future perfect: We will have put up the tent before you get back.
and the passive will + have been +
past participle. Remember it's a perfect so we need to use been.
The tent will have been put up before you get back.
So that were all the tenses.
Remember use a form of to be and the past participle
Finally the modals: can, could, should, might
must, may etc. Quite easy an active
example: She can help you with your homework.
Can is a modal here. To turn it into a passive you use can
the base form of the verb to be, which is be and the past participle
you can be helped with your homework.
Now in the English language we do not only have objects
there is also such a thing as an indirect object
I will show you an active example. They gave me the letter
they is a subject
and the letter is object, the direct
object but me here is an indirect object.
So what do you need to do when you change an active sentence
into a passive when it contains both an object
the letter and me an indirect object?
For the direct subject the letter was given to me
quite straightforward. But then for the
indirect object: I was given the letter
So please note that the me has changed into an 'I'.
Because you cannot say: Me was given the letter.
So both options here.
We also have such a thing as a prepositional object.
somebody must deal with the problem.
'with the problem' is what we call a prepositional
object. To make it into a passive you
do the following: the problem must be dealth with
so remember must here is a modal we add 'be'
and then the past participle form of
of deal which is dealt
so the problem must be dealt with and then we put the preposition at
the end of the sentence.
Let's have a look at passives and subclauses.
He suggested that that we should leave at once.
'that we should leave at once' is a subclause
now a subclause is a piece of a sentence but that cannot exist on its own,
so if would change it, it would say that we should leave at once was suggested
but that's a bit weird. So what we do here
we use it, now remember
it does not occur in the active sentence but because
'that we should leave at once was suggested' is a bit strange
we simply make use of 'it'
It was suggested that we should leave at once
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