What is the passive voice? When do we use
the passive voice? And how can I easily change the active voice, to the passive
voice? I'm Arnel from Arnel's Everyday English, and today I'm going to
answer these three questions step by step. Today's lesson plan is: What is the
passive voice? The grammatical structure. When to use the passive voice. Plus an
important study tip: Transforming from the active to the passive. Some sentences
cannot be transformed into the passive. I'll tell you why. So, there's going to be
a lot of information in this lesson. Get ready to take notes! Let's begin.
What is the passive voice? The passive voice is the opposite of the active
voice. Active: Everybody loves chocolate. Passive: Chocolate is loved by everybody.
Active: The lifeguard saved a man. Passive: A man was saved by the lifeguard. Active:
Decorators are painting my house. Passive: My house is being painted. Okay, here are
three examples of the passive. Now let's look at this grammar in more detail. Step
two: The grammatical structure. When you form the passive you need BE plus a past
participle. Here are the forms of BE. There's a lot. AM/ARE/IS in the present, WAS/WERE in the past. You can use BEEN with perfect tenses, and BEING in continuous
tenses. You need a form of this plus that past participle which is verb number
three: EAT/ATE/EATEN, eaten is my past participle. PLAY/PLAYED/PLAYED, played is
my past participle. The three sentences from earlier they
all have BE and that past participle. So, let's compare two sentences: This bottle of ketchup has already BEEN
opened. I have BEEN tired for weeks. Which sentence is passive? Right! The first one. Why? Because I have
the BE and the past participle. In the second sentence, I have BE, Which is great.
But I don't have a past participle, tired is an adjective, so that sentence isn't a
passive. So, always remember the passive has... BE and
past participle. Step number three: Why do we use the
passive? When the action is more important or
interesting than the person who does the action.
1 million pounds were donated to the children's hospital. Wow! 1 million pounds,
that's a lot of money. This is very interesting. Who donated the money? It's
not important, I'm interested in the information here. Active, the Prime Minister donated 1
million pounds to the children's hospital. Here, wow it's the prime
minister. In the active sentence, it's really important, who does the action. But
in the passive, that's not important. Number 2: The person who does the action
is not known, or not important. This beautiful bridge was built in 1732.
Who built the bridge? It's not important. Or, I don't know.
Active: John Taylor Thomas built this bridge in 1732.
Imagine John Taylor Thomas is a famous architect. Then, that information is
important. In the passive, not important, and in the active, important.
Number 3: The person doing the action is obvious. Bill was arrested last night.
Who arrested Bill? It's obvious. The police arrested Bill! Only the police can
arrest someone. Active: The police arrested bill last
night. You could definitely say that, it's just a different emphasis. Number 4: The object cannot do the
action itself. 100 chocolate cakes were sold on Sunday.
Can a cake sell itself? Of course not, it needs to be the passive.
If you want to say who does the action, you can use an agent. We form the agent
using BY plus person. The agent is optional. 1 million pounds were donated to the
Children Hospital by the Prime Minister. By the Prime Minister is optional
information. This beautiful bridge was built in 1732. By John Taylor Thomas, that's optional
information. 100 chocolate cakes were sold on Sunday
by Jones's bakery. Again, optional information. Important study tip! In a newspaper, I want you to highlight
any form of the passive you see. I want you to ask yourself: Why is the passive
being used? Is it reason one, two, three or four? You can also do this when you're
watching a film. Use the subtitles to help you. Once you understand why the
passive is being used, you can start using it confidently. Step number 4: Transforming an active
sentence to a passive sentence. Active: Apple sells thousands of iPhones every
day. How can I change this to the passive? Remember you need BE plus past participle. Thousands of iPhones are sold every day.
Do I want the agent? By Apple is reason number three, it's obvious. Only
Apple sells iPhones. Apple sells thousands of iPhones every day. Thousands
of iPhones are sold every day by Apple. Each tense has its own passive structure.
You need a list: Here I have a list of the tenses, and you
can see that BE and the past participle. The tenses is in red present perfect
continuous, past perfect continuous, do not have a natural passive form.
Don't try to form the passive using the red tenses. Now I don't want you to think
oh there are so many structures for me to memorize. Step one, you recognize the
passive step two, you understand the passive, and step
three you use the passive. Whichever step you're on is fine. Oh, how are you feeling? I hope you're
feeling... like this and not like this... I have one more important piece of
information to tell you about the passive. Intransitive verbs cannot be
made into the passive. What is an intransitive verb? An intransitive verb
does not have an object. I bought a coffee. Buy is a transitive
verb, it needs an object. In this case, coffee. I arrived late. Here, arrived is an
intransitive verb. It doesn't need an object. I arrived is fine there's no
object needed, its intransitive. So, send is number one if i want to make
it the passive. A coffee was bought. Perfect. Sentence
number two, it's not possible. Intransitive verbs, no
passive. Fantastic, well done! If you want a list of all the passive formations
plus examples, you can go to my website. I'll leave the link in the description
for you. There you have it, if you want more videos don't forget to SUBSCRIBE!
And I'll see you very soon for another lesson!
