Passive voice
Use of Passive
Passive
voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not
known, who or what is performing the action.
Example:
My bike was stolen.
Who
stole it?
Form of Passive
Subject
+ verb to be + Past Participle (3rd column of irregular
verbs / verb ending -ed)
Example:
A letter was written (irregular)
A
football game is being played (regular)
Active to Passive
When rewriting
active sentences in passive voice, note the following steps:
1st
step: the object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive
sentence
2nd
step: verb to be takes the tense of the verb in the active sentence.
3rd
step: write the past participle of the verb in the active sentence.
4th
step: the subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive
sentence (or is dropped) introduced by _____
|
Active
|
Passive
|
1st step
|
Object
|
Subject
|
2nd step
|
Verb
tense =
|
Tense
of the verb to be
|
3rd step
|
Verb
=
|
Past
participle
|
4th step
|
subject
|
by …
|
Example:
Tom has made a cake (active)
A
cake has been made by Tom (Passive)
Passive Sentences
with Two Objects
Rewriting an
active sentence with two objects in passive voice means that one of the two
objects becomes the subject, the other one remains an object.
|
Subject
|
Verb
|
Object
1
|
Object
2
|
Active:
|
Rita
|
wrote
|
a letter
|
to me.
|
Passive:
|
A
letter
|
was written
|
to me
|
by Rita.
|
Passive:
|
I
|
was written
|
a letter
|
by Rita.
|
IMPERSONAL AND PERSONAL PASSIVE
Sometimes when you are reporting what people say or believe, you don´t
know, or you don´t want to say, who exactly the `people´ are. So you use an
impersonal construction:
People believe that thousands of
birds died.
The same idea can be expressed by using the passive in two different ways:
a) subject + passive of
reporting verb + `to´ infinitive (PERSONAL PASSIVE)
Hundreds of thousands of birds
are believed to have died.
b) It + passive of reporting
verb + that + clause (IMPERSONAL PASSIVE)
It is believed that hundreds of
thousands of birds died.
VERB CHANGES IN PERSONAL PASSIVE
PRESENT / SIMPLE FUTURE: live / will live __ to live (to infinitive)
PRESENT CONTINUOUS: is living __ to be living (to be + V-ing)
PRESENT PERFECT: have lived __ to have lived (to have + pp)
PAST SIMPLE / PAST PERFECT: lived __ to have lived / had lived __ to have lived (to have + pp)
PAST CONTINUOUS: was living __ to have been living (to have been + V-ing)
THE CAUSATIVE FORM: have/get + object +past participle
Instead
of a passive sentence, we sometimes use the causative form when you get
somebody else to do something for you.
- She's having
her house redecorated.
- I had a
copy of the report sent to you
In
informal English, we can replace 'have' by 'get'.
- They will
be getting the system repaired.
- I got the
bill sent direct to the company.
Change from active into passive:
