Passive in English | infinitive | perfect infinitive | present perfect | present & past continuous

hi in today's lesson we're going to learn some more about the passive in English this is the second in a series of three videos about the passive if you haven't seen my first video I would recommend you check it out first by clicking the link above now today we're going to learn about the passive infinitive the passive perfect infinitive the passive in the present perfect and the passive in the present continuous keep watching until the end where there will be a short quiz to see how much you've learnt so let's get started okay to study the passive this week we're going to compare active sentences with passive sentences to say the same thing so you'll see how to say it in the active and then how to change to see how to say it in the passive remember we use the passive when we don't know who is doing an action or it's unimportant so in an active sentence the subject completes an action but in a passive the action is being done to the subject okay so let's have a look at our first example so let's look at the infinitive so this is when we have either a bare infinitive that is the infinitive without to or the verb with to this is the infinitive and various structures use this so we will see a couple of different examples any verb that is in this form would follow this format so let's first look at an active sentence the form is to do or to clean or do or clean in the Barings infinitive example in all my examples today I will use the verb to do as my example verb but this would apply to all verbs so the active sentence is somebody will clean the car later here we have the bare infinitive of the verb to clean with the future simple will if we transform this into a passive sentence we take the object of an active sentence the car and this becomes the subject of the passive sentence remember the action of a passive sentence is being done to the subject the passive form is to be or just be if it's a bare infinitive plus the past participle done or in this case cleaned scene etc so here the car will be cleaned later as it's a passive we don't know who will clean the car and it's not really important the importance of this sentence is that the car will be cleaned later the action of cleaning the car is important and not who does this action another example of the infinitive is this X Y Zed construction company are going to build a new supermarket this year this is an active sentence the construction company are doing the action of building if we want to change this to a passive sentence when we don't know the company or it is unimportant who the company is the fact that a new supermarket is being built is what is important we put it in the passive a new supermarket is going to be built this year here we've got the full infinitive to be plus the past participle built with the tomb unlike the first example okay so now let's look at the perfect infinitive so here the active form is to have plus the past participle done clean cleaned or seen or any past participle so somebody should have cleaned the car is an example of this in an active sentence if we transform this to a passive perfect infinitive we have the passive form which is to have plus being plus the past participle so Dan cleaned scene or any other past participle so here we would have the car should have been cleaned okay we have another example of this if you hadn't left the car unlocked it wouldn't have been stolen okay so now let's look at the present perfect the active form is have or has plus the past participle remember the present perfect is when an action started in the past that has a result in the present if you want more information on that and click the link above now to see another of my videos on the present perfect in more detail so here the car looks nice somebody has cleaned it so it's the present perfect and the result is that look we can see the car now in the present we can see that the car is all nice and clean but the action of cleaning it started in the past whereas if we turn this into a passive where we don't know or it's not important who clean the car the importance is that the car is clean now so we use a passive the form is house'll have been-- plus done or any other past participle so in this sentence it would be the car looks nice it has been cleaned okay so let's have a look at another example a very common question that we use with the present perfect in active sentences is have you ever have you ever been to Italy or have you ever eaten a snail these are all questions about life experiences so we use the present perfect but you want to use the present perfect passive in a question you say have you ever been bitten by a snake so again you're not doing the biting is the snake so we use the preposition by but we are using the present perfect passive because the action is happening to you okay so let's move on to look at the past perfect now so the active form of the past perfect is to use hard plus the past participle so here we have the sentence the car look nice somebody had cleaned it so remember we use the past perfect to show an action happening before another action in the past so the car looked nice in the past somebody had cleaned it before it looked nice so we use the past perfect here this is an active sentence because somebody is doing the action of cleaning okay so now we're going to transform that into a past perfect passive sentence the form is hard plus bean plus the past participle so in this case cleaned so it would be the car looked nice it had been cleaned again it doesn't matter who did the cleaning the result is what we're interested in it had been cleaned by somebody okay so let's have a look at another example of the past perfect in the passive the food didn't taste very good it had been cooked too long okay next tense the present continuous okay present continuous in the active we all know we use the present continuous when we're talking about something that is happening now the form is an R or is plus the in form of the verb again like all these verbs you can check out a link above if you want to learn about these tenses in more detail here are sentences somebody is cleaning the car at the moment it is happening now turning this into a passive we use the form a more R or is plus being plus the past participle so here being done or being cleaned the car is being cleaned at the moment we don't know who is doing it we don't care who is doing it it's just the action that is happening to the car that we are interested in so we use the passive another example of this would be in a question a very common question and you can now use this when you go into a shop and someone asks you can I help you you will use the present continuous aren't you clever so no thank you I am being served by someone it is not important who this is the present continuous in the passive so pat on your back if you can use this in shops well done so next one is the past continuous we're nearly there past continuous active form is was or were plus the in form of the verb so somebody was cleaning the car when I arrived often we use the past continuous when something is happening in the past over a duration of time and it is interrupted by an action so he here I arrived in the past simple turn this into a passive past continuous the form is was or were plus being and the past participle so here the car was being cleaned when I arrived the passive is used you know why because who does it is not important or we don't know who is cleaning the car so he used the passive another example of that would be there was somebody walking behind us we were being followed so this is happening over a period of time in the past you were being followed by somebody but again it is mainly unknown who that person was who was following you so we use the passive ok so now it's your turn let's see how much you have remembered or learned what I want you to do is to change these active sentences into passive ones number one they have postponed the meeting the meeting has been postponed here we have the present perfect passive form which has the form has plus being plus the past participle we don't know who has postponed the meeting and it is not important the importance is the meeting time has been delayed it is at a later time to somebody is using the computer at the moment the computer is being you at the moment this is the present continuous passive form it is being used by somebody we don't know who it is it is not important who it is it is just important that we can't use the computer so we use is plus being plus the past participle three I didn't realize that somebody was recording our conversation I didn't realize that our conversation was being recorded here this is the past continuous passive form so we have was plus being plus the past participle which is recorded we don't know who is doing it it is not important what is important is that the conversation was recorded for when we got to the stadium we found that they had canceled the game when we got to the stadium we found that the game had been cancelled here we are using the past perfect passive form and the form is hard plus being plus the past participle we use the passive you know why because we don't know who has canceled the game and it is not important the importance is the game is not on it has been cancelled finally number five the situation is serious someone must do something before it's too late write your answers down below in the comment section and I'll let you know how you do so that's it for now I hope you feel more confident using the passive in English remember to like this video if you found it useful and share it with your family and friends learning English and don't forget to subscribe so as not to miss out on any new English language videos thank you for watching and see you very soon bye bye

Channel: Oxford English Now

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Keywords: passive in english, passive english, passive voice, active and passive voice, active voice, passive form, passive sentences, passive verbs, active voice and passive voice, active passive voice, passive voice exercises, passive voice examples, present perfect, present continuous, past continuous, past perfect, infinitive, perfect infinitive

Id: yMmlsOW3KOA

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2019