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  • 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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Welcome to englishgrammarspot this lesson is about the passive voice.

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