THE PASSIVE

We often prefer the passive when it is not so important who or what did the action. e.g. This house was built in 1895. In this example, it is not so important who built the house. In a passive sentence, if you want to say who did or what caused the action, use by. e.g. This house was built by my grandfather. Have you ever been bitten by a dog? In passive sentences use the correct form of be + past participle. Present simple Am/are/is + participle Someone cleans this room every day. This room is cleaned every day. Past simple Was/were + participle Someone cleaned this room This room was cleaned yesterday. yesterday. Present continuous Am/are/is being + participle Someone is cleaning the room at The room is being cleaned at the the moment. moment. Past continuous Was/were being + participle Someone was cleaning the room when I room was being cleaned when The arrived. I arrived. Present perfect Have/has been + participle The room looks nice. Someone has The room looks nice. It has been cleaned it. cleaned. Past perfect Had been + participle The room looked much better. The room looked much better. It Someone had been cleaned. had cleaned it. Future Will/be going to + be + participle Someone will clean this room soon. This room will be cleaned soon. We are going to clean this room. This room is going to be cleaned. Modal verbs Must/should/can + be + participle Someone should clean this room. This room should be cleaned. If a verb has two objects, it is possible to make two different passive sentences. e.g. They didnt offer Ann the job. ( Ann and the job are the objects) Ann wasnt offered the job or The job wasnt offered to Ann. Other verbs that can have two objects are: ask, tell, give, send, show, teach, pay Sometimes we can use get instead of be in the passive. Get is informal; it is used mainly in spoken English. We often use it for something happening by accident or unexpectedly. e.g. The dog got run over by a car.

OTHER PASSIVE STRUCTURES

1) It is said that/he is said to Henry is very old but nobody knows how old he is. e.g. It is said that he is 108 years old or He is said to be 108 years old. Both these sentences mean: People say that he is 108 years old. We can use this structures with: thought, believed, reported, understood, known, expected, alleged, considered 2) Supposed to Sometimes it means said to: Lets go and see that film. Its supposed to be very good. It can be used to say what is planned or arranged: The train was supposed to arrive at 11.30 but it was 40 minutes late. Use not suppose to to say what is not allowed or not advisable: You are not suppose to park here. 3) Have something done The roof of Jills house was damaged in a storm, so she arranged for a workman to repair it. Yesterday the workman came and repaired it. e.g. Jill had the roof repaired yesterday. This means Jill didnt repair the roof herself. She arranged for someone else to do it for her. Other verbs: have your car serviced, have your clothes cleaned, have your TV repaired, have a telephone installed, have your hair cut/done, have a new garage built The word order is important: HAVE + OBJECT + PARTICIPLE. We can also use get something done, but it is more informal. e.g. I think you should get your hair cut or I think you should have your hair cut. We can also use have something done with the meaning experience something, usually something unpleasant. e.g. We had all our money stolen.