We were asked to give you on this blog some tips to “Learn how to use passive voice correctly” as a project of the course: Grammar II.
The passive voice is used when we want to focus attention on a person or thing affected by an action.
1. Construction:
It usually uses the verb to be + a verb in past participle
Example: The room was (to be) cleaned (past participle).
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2. The object and the Passive Voice:
The object becomes the subject of the sentence
Example: Active: Carl kicks the ball (object)
Example: Passive: The ball (object) is kicked by Carl
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3. The Use of BY:
The agent is introduced using by
Example: The Gioconda was painted by Leonardo da Vinci
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4. Intransitive verbs
You can not use the passive voice with Intransitive verbs, because these do not take action on a direct object.
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5. Who is the agent?
Use it when you do not know who the agent is
Example: She does not know who did it, but her hair was being cutted.
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6. You know to much
Use it when is obvious who the agent is
Example: Her hair was blowed.
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Use It when it is not important to know who the agent is
Example: The car is being sold.
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8. It helps to talk about the agent
Use it when the agent has already been mentioned
Example: My grandma baked some cakes yesterday. They were sold already.
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9. People in general
Use it when people in general are the agents
Example: The house is built.
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10. Giving some respect
Use it to be polite
Example: A letter is being given.
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Finally, this video should be helpful for you to understand more about passive voice:
We hope this information can help you to improve your knowledge and if you want to test how much you learn about this topic, take a look over the next links:
