Passive voice Bachillerato

passive voice

Sentence transformation: passive to active

What is it?

Basic Features

Impersonal passive

Structure

Causative

Passive tenses

Resources

Sentence transformation: active to passive

More practice...

How do we turn active into passive?

Info

Info

1. Find the verb and identify its tense. 2. Build the passive verb with its possible options (right option 'to be' + past participle) 3. Find Subject (S) and Direct Object (DO). 4. Do the 'CROSS' 5. Add the rest of complements

Causative

We use a causative verb when we want to talk about something that someone else did for us or for another person. It means that the subject caused the action to happen, but didn't do it themselves. It is often used for services, when we pay to a professional to do it for ourselves.

• subject + get + object + past participle

(get something done)

• subject + have + object + past participle

(have something done)

I had my car washed last week. (I didn't wash it myself, I took it to a car wash) John will have his house painted. (He won't paint it himself, someone will do it for him)

The students get their essays checked.(It's probably the teacher who corrects the essays)I'll get my hair cut next week. (I'll go to the hairdresser's)

Info

They both have the same meaning, but "have" causative is more formal than "get".

IMPERSONAL PASSIVE

There are some verbs such as SAY, THINK, BELIEVE, KNOW, REPORT, EXPECT or CONSIDER which allow two types of passive:

It + passive verb + that + rest of the sentenceIt is believed that Michael Jackson is still alive. Subject + passive verb + to infinitive + complements Michael Jackson is thought to be still alive

Watch

Both cases can be translated into Spanish as: "Se piensa que Michael Jackson todavía está vivo."

How do we turn passive into active?

The steps are very similar. Just keep in mind these aspects: - Find the passive verb: the tense of 'to be' will be the tense of the main verb (which appears as a past participle) - Make your subject explicit. - You only need to pay attention to Subject, Agent and passive verb, wich will become Direct Object, Subject and active verb respectively. The rest of the sentence will remain the same.

The exam might be postponed * if we sign a petition.

The teacher might postpone the exam if we sign the petition.

It is obvious that it is the teacher who has the power to postpone an exam, that's why we don't need to specify "by the teacher" in the passive form, but we need to add it to the active sentence. When we don't know who the subject is, we can use "they" or "people"

Passive structure

SUBJECT + TO BE + PAST PARTICIPLE + AGENT + COMPLEMENTS

+ These articles were written by students- That house isn't built by one single person. ? Were the letters sent yesterday?

Superprof

EF

Causatives

Inglés para perezosos

More practice

Causative

Impersonal

Don't forget...

Passive means that you will always find some features:

• 'To be', every passive construction needs the verb 'to be', which will appear conjugated in the right tense (am/is/are if it is present, was/were if its past, will be if it is future).
• Past participle of the main verb (-ed or 3rd column)
• 'By' will introduce the Agent of your sentence, that is, the person doing the action. Remember that it is not always necessary to include it.

What is it?

Passive voice is a grammatical construction which we use to focus on the action and NOT on the person doing such action.It is similar in English and Spanish, though there are some differences in formation and use. It is more commonly used in English than we do in Spanish. When do we use it? Unimportant Subject, when we want to focus on the action and not the subject, because it is not important. "Those scenes were shot here" (We don't mind who shot the scenes, but the place where they did it). Obvious subject, when the subject doing the action is obvious, unknown or we don't want to mention it. "My computer was repaired last week" (Computers are usually repaired by technicians, so it is not necessary to specify it.)