Everything About Passive Voice - Full English Lesson

hello everyone let's talk about the beloved passive voice i'm gonna show you what it is what it looks like how to make it and why it's even used and then at the end i'm gonna give you some little speaking tips for the passive voice here we go all right so before we jump into the passive i think it's important to understand what the active voice is active voice all it means is that the subject of a sentence this is the subject who or what a sentence is about is doing the verb that's it and this is a verb it's an action or a state so mary is the subject mary gave me a book what did mary do mary gave me a book subject verb in an active sentence the subject does the action in the verb now in the passive voice it's a little bit different here we are i was given a book by mary same idea right except for now the subject of this sentence i is not the person doing the action in the verb okay i was given did i do something no i just sat there and somebody gave me something so this verb the action actually happens to the subject in a passive voice sentence this is the passive voice whereas in an active voice sentence the subject is doing the verb subject does the verb here the verb is done to the subject that's really the main difference okay but we'll talk about why later but first let's talk about what's happening in the grammar okay so as you can see these two sentences are the same idea mary gave me a book i was given a book by mary okay here we have the verb give in the past tense here we have the verb give but we also are using it in the past participle form with a be verb in front of it a helping verb so that's really important the other thing is that right here at the end i have this buy phrase by mary which is actually optional you don't have to put it in there it's extra information you don't have to i was given a book maybe you don't want to say who gave it to you if you do you can say i was given a book by mary okay but let's talk more about how to make the passive voice all right first thing you need to know is for the passive voice you always need to have some form of the be verb or you could also use get okay it's a little bit more informal but very common so some form of b and then any verb in the past participle well i shouldn't say any verb and i'll talk about that later okay so v plus the past participle for example here's our sentence from earlier was given that's the passive voice and we have a form of be right here a form this happens to be simple past third person singular given past participle if you're wondering what's the past participle the past participle i always tell my students is that third form of the verb we usually have the simple present the simple past and then the past participle when we're learning verbs so you can say like give present or base form gave simple past and given is the past participle that is the third form of the verb every single verb in english has these three forms and more and some are the same for the simple past and the past participle but not all of them okay let's move on okay so in order to make a sentence in the passive voice you first have to make sure that the sentence can be written in the active voice because if it cannot be written in the active voice it probably can't be written in the passive voice and that is because of the type of verb now let's check this out carlos writes books carlos is the subject rights is the action it's the verb and books what's that well that happens to be the object of this verb okay so i'm just gonna write object now carlos right so carlos is doing the verb that means this is an active sentence what does carlos write he writes books this is the object now it's really really really really important that there is a object after this verb when a verb has an object after it it is called a transitive verb but don't worry you don't need to know that what it means is that this verb has an object after it and it must have an object after it not all verbs have objects after them for example i sleep sentence is done there's no object an earthquake happened no object okay so some verbs don't have objects after those you can never make a sentence passive if there's no object because you need an object to make it passive now let me show you what i mean carlos writes books this is a transitive verb because it takes an object after it okay now in order to make a sentence passive all i got to do is switch these things around i'm going to move the object to the subject position [Music] books and now i'm going to move this old subject to the object position and i'm going to say but what goes in the middle well that's the that's the part we just talked about the verb the verb has to go in the middle remember what verb form do we need we need a form of be plus the past participle we need the past participle of right what is the past participle of right write wrote written okay and before that we need a form of b now what verb tense is that that's the present tense so what is the present tense of the verb be am is are which one agrees with books books am no books is no books are books are so here's the b here's the past participle this is the passive we're not done now we have books are written carlos no now we can add that by word books are written by carlos now remember you don't have to say by carlos it's not necessary sometimes you want to keep it sometimes you don't that's up to you but look now this sentence is in the passive voice because the subject of this sentence this is now the subject is not doing the writing it is receiving the writing the writing is being done to it okay see the difference now let's talk more about when we can do that all right now check this out all the active verb forms and tense combinations all that where simple presence simple past present progressive present perfect present perfect progressive past perfect progressive modals all that right you can write it in the active voice but you can also put it in the passive voice as long as the verb has an object so look at this carlos writes books present tense let's make it passive books are written by carlos present tense active voice present tense passive voice you could do it in the past carlos wrote books past books were written by carlos now it's past tense wrote we're written all right let's go up a notch carlos is writing books what's that that's the present progressive or the present continuous we have b plus present participle ing form right let's turn that into the passive what do we do well for the passive we need b plus past participle but if we want to keep it as a progressive form we're also going to need a form of the progressive now how are we going to do that that means we need to combine the progressive verb and the passive together and we're gonna do it like this books are being written by carlos what in the okay so that is we have our being okay here this is the present progressive which is this up here b plus a verb and ing but here these two together now we have the passive which is be any form of b happens to be ing form that's fine b any form of b plus the past participle books are being written by carlos right now okay what about this one this is the past progressive carlos was writing b in the past plus verb ing let's make that passive what are we going to do same as the last one books were being written books were being written we got b plus for by and g as the progressive b plus past participle as the passive okay take a look at this one carlos has written books he has written books what form is that that's the present perfect right when we want to say something started in the past continues till now or happened in the past and is important now carlos has written books what do we need to make the present perfect we need a form of have plus the past participle that's what you need to make the present perfect that's what we have here but to make it passive we need to combine the present perfect with the passive how we gonna do that books have been written books have been written by carlos we have here the present perfect which is have plus past participle and then here we have the passive voice which is b plus past participle we've combined them to create the present perfect passive something like that all right same thing with the past perfect which is very similar except for its past had not present carlos had written books over here books had been written by carlos future with will carlos will write books we have will with the helping verb the modal whatever right we need that but then we need b and a past participle books will be written by carlos how do i know that i need to use the b form that's because will is a modal and don't forget that every time you use a modal the verb form after it must always be base form just like up here will plus right it's base form of any verb will base form will base form so because we need the be verb and the past participle we have them both here after our word that shows time books will be written by carlos tomorrow oh here's a great one and actually people don't actually use the future perfect that much that's what this is but i'm going to show it to you anyway carlos will have written books will plus have written so future here and then we have the present perfect so it's called the future perfect so we need to do that in the passive and here we are books will there's the future have been there's the present perfect been written there's the passive boom boom boom great thing is to make passive voice negative is very easy all you got to do is throw in the word not you don't need to add another helping verb books are written as positive books are not written is negative you put the not right after that first helping verb food will be eaten is affirmative or positive food will not be eaten is negative that's it you just put the knot right after that first helping verb what about for questions the food is being eaten is it is the food being eaten here's an example of a question in the present progressive passive is the food being eaten let's find the subject first here's the subject okay and then we have a helping verb over here and then the rest of the verb over here now it's passive that means you do need to have a form of b and the past participle which you have here what's this going on over here this is part of the progressive remember to make progressive you need b plus verb ing here's that b plus verb ing to show you what i'm talking about when we want to make something in the progressive we need b a form of b and a verb plus ing to make something passive we need a form of b plus the past participle that's what's happening in this sentence the food is being that's the progressive part being eaten the food is being eaten is being is progressive being eaten is the passive now to change this statement into a question i just need to move the verb the first helping verb which is this one the first verb before the subject is the food being eaten question mark is it being eaten now the great thing to notice here about passive when you make it a question is that because b is part of the passive voice the verb be whenever you have the verb be and you want to make a question right when you move it to the front you don't have to add or change it you don't need a new helping verb like you do when you're making a sentence in the simple present without be for example i eat chips this is simple present look at the verb it's just active voice there's no passive there's no b verb if i want to make this a question i need to add a helping verb which is really complicated but to do it it would look like this do i eat chips in other words i would have to add a new verb do to make a yes no question because my verb that i already have is not a be verb or a helping verb so i need to add a helping verb that's what i'm saying about the passive voice is that the passive voice already has a helping verb be is a helping verb so you don't have to add anything else so making questions in the passive voice is a little bit easier than some other questions now look at this sentence jose bought a bike let's make a question out of this let's see if we can make it in the active voice a regular question look at the verb is that a helping verb no it's not it's not a modal it's not the be verb it's not due it's it's not have we need to add a helping verb if we want to make a question so we're going to say and look it's past tense so are we going to use do or did or does we're going to use did did jose and then here is our main verb now we need to make that in the base form because the tense is over here we don't need verb tense on both verbs only one did jose buy a bike now that is active voice it's just a regular question but let's make it passive okay so here's the sentence not the question the statement in the passive voice a bike was bought by jose but we don't have to say that right a bike was bought so now let's make that a passive voice question let's move the helping verb it's already a helping verb let's move it on over to the front was lowercase here was a bike bot question mark that's it okay let's turn this one into the passive voice question it already is in the passive voice and i say has been written the essay received that action right now let's make it a question well where's the first helping verb this is the first helping verb there's two one two this is the main verb so you wanna move the first helping verb over to the front and you're gonna say has and then you need the subject and essay and now you just need the rest of the verb has an essay been written so there you have it that is how you make the passive voice now i'm going to talk about when we make it but wait before we do that let's go over some common mistakes now remember i said if you want to make a verb in the passive voice it has to be a transitive verb which means it has to have an object first let's look at these active voice sentences a crime happened okay does this verb have an object some sort of thing that comes after it a noun crime happen no it does not so therefore you cannot make it passive voice and that is really hard let's see what would happen if you tried to do that it would look like this a crime was happened this would have to be the subject even though it can't be and then the students would usually write was and then keep this as past participle but you can't do that a crime was happened isn't possible because the verb happened doesn't have an object so you can't do that it can only be active voice how about this one she is sleeping now sleeping is the verb do you see an object after it an object is a noun or a pronoun nope that's just a time word it's not a thing it's not a noun so you cannot make this passive voice so what it might look like if you try to do that is you might write something like this or is being selected something like that but it doesn't work it's not grammatical because sleep is not a transitive verb there's no object that comes after it so the passive voice is actually pretty common it's more common in academic writing but you will hear people say don't use the passive voice but why let's talk about when it's used okay the first reason why you would want to use the passive voice is because you want to give a focus on that thing that comes at the beginning of the sentence what i mean is that normally when we use the the active voice i can say uh i eat nachos i am the focus i but if i want to focus on nachos i would move nachos to the front of my sentence so i would say nachos are eaten by me and i would only do that if i wanted to give focus to that thing okay here's an example of when you would want to do that here what's happening in the sentence i'm going to show you is that i've mentioned nachos but i want to bring cohesion and coherence between the first sentence and the second sentence by adding the word nacho at the beginning of my second sentence which means it has to be in the passive voice because nachos can't do anything on their own really they're just eaten okay so here's an example people all over the world enjoy nachos it's probably not true but i love nachos it's my favorite food people all over the world enjoy nachos a dish of chips and cheese melted cheese here's my second sentence nachos are eaten passive voice often as snacks so what i'm doing is i'm trying to bring more cohesion between this sentence and this sentence by using the passive voice because that means that the word nachos which i already said over here comes first if you don't want to repeat the word nacho you could use a pronoun and say they that's totally fine the meaning is there it's still coherent they are eaten often as snacks now here's what that would look like if i didn't use the passive voice it would still be grammatical it would still be great but it loses that cohesion let's see people all over the world enjoy nachos a dish of chips and cheese people eat them often as snacks do you see the difference here is a active sentence people eat them nachos as snacks whereas i could have said nachos are eaten often as snacks it gives focus to what i'm trying to focus on it brings focus to what i'm talking about and what i just said to bring cohesion another reason why you would want to use the passive voice is because you might want to avoid repeating the person who is doing something again and again and again look at this example teachers assign essays to students teachers grade the essays i can see teachers give the students a chance to rewrite their essays or i can avoid repeating teacher teacher teacher and i can use the passive voice and say students are given a chance by the teachers but i don't have to repeat that because i can assume and you can assume it's the teachers who do that so avoid that by using passive students are given a chance by teachers to rewrite their essays here i'm using the passive voice because i don't need to repeat teacher again i know and you know it's teachers so let's focus on the students and take out who's requiring or giving the chance to do something else now this is the most important reason i think for why you want to use the passive voice and that is because you might want to avoid and not say who did something because it's a secret or because you don't want to put negative attention on that person for example anna asked a rude question i heard her did you right okay but maybe he didn't it that person over there so when i say oh yeah anna asked a rude question then the focus is on anna but maybe he doesn't need to know who did it maybe he just needs to know that it happened so using the passive voice takes out the person who did it watch here a rude question was asked now we're using the passive voice we took out the name anna we don't know who asked the question it doesn't matter the fact is a rude question was asked and now we can avoid blaming that person because her name's not there how about this one mike broke the rules mike broke the rules mark broke the rules i'm blaming mike that's a bad thing right that's scary well we can avoid blaming him by saying the rules were broken now i don't have to focus on who broke them the focus is on the fact that they were broken not who we don't want to blame and with the passive voice you can take away the blame and finally the most important reason why you want to use passive voice is if you're writing scientific reports or labs which i think many people have to do you know in college or something like that where you're writing a science lab report so with those we want to be as objective as possible and not put ourselves or somebody else into it we want to stay away from from what's happening and and be apart from it and how do you do that use the passive voice because it takes out the person who does it look at these sentences researchers surveyed people who surveyed the people researchers this is very active the researchers did this they did that they analyzed the result the researchers analyzed the results it's very personal let's separate the researchers from these actions by putting them in the passive voice now people were surveyed by who researchers it doesn't matter we know that what's important is that we're stepping away the researchers are stepping away from this and it's passive people were surveyed the results were analyzed by the researchers but we don't need to say that because one we know it's them and two because we we're writing something more scientific and we want to step away from being part of it and be more objective that means not have an opinion about what's happening and just let things happen i know that's kind of confusing but that is so for science and reports and and research and studies often times you will see the passive voice i hope that was helpful for you thanks for watching bye

Channel: Breaking English

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Keywords: passive voice, passive tense, the passive voice, english tenses, passive voice in english, learn english, english grammar, passive voice grammar, how to use, improve english grammar, english passive verbs, passive, passive verbs, better grammar, passive sentence, english with emma, english teacher, english conversation, english listening, native english speaker, common english mistakes, grammar challenge, common grammar mistakes, how to use the passive, grammar lessons

Id: ojgK3RZsmWo

Length: 28min 5sec (1685 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021