PASSIVE VOICE

By Beldad Fenco Periche.

PASSIVE VOICE
By Beldad Fenco Periche.

carpenter

table

The carpenter makes a table.

carpenter

table

The table is made by the carpente

PASSIVE VOICE

Compare active and passive:

Somebody cleans the office every day.

(active)
The office is cleaned everyday. (passive)
Somebody cleaned the office every day.
(active)

PASSIVE IS
past
to be
FORMED:
participle
am / is / are (not)
cleaned.
present simple
taken.
present continuous am / is / are (not) + being
was / were (not)
built.
past simple
was / were (not) + being
injured.
past continuous
Examples:
present simple
present
continuous
past simple
past continuous

active

passive

He paints the house.

He
is
house.

painting

The house is painted.

the

The house is being painted.

He painted the house. The house was painted.

He was painting theThe
house
was
being
house.
painted.

Examples:

active

passive

present simple

David punches the wall.

present
continuous

Ana is
poem.

past simple
past continuous

writing

The wall
David.

is

punched

by

bigA big poem is being written

by Ana.

Daniel washed the carThe car was washed by

yesterday.
Daniel.
Damon was teachingMathematics
was
being
mathematics
lasttaught by Damon last
month.
month.

PASSIVE IS
FORMED:
Present Perfect
Future Intention
with Going to
Future Simple

Examples:
Present
Perfect

to be

past
participle

been (not)

produced.

be (not)

built.

will be(not)

finished.

active

passive

They
have
Over 20 models have
produced over 20
been produced in the
models in the past
past two years.
two years.

They are going to

Future
A new factory is going
build
a
new
to
be
built
in
Intention with factory
in
Portland.
Going to
Portland.
I

will

finish

Future Simple tomorrow.

it It will be
tomorrow.

finished

PASSIVE IS
FORMED:
Past Perfect
Future perfect
Modals

Examples:

to be

past
participle

been (not)

caught.

have been (not)

restored.

modal + be(not)

restored.

active

passive

Past Perfect

They had caught The thieves had been

the thieves.
caught.

Future perfect

The
will
restored
building.

Modals

They must restore The building must be

the building.
restored.

have
The building will have
the
been restored.

The meeting was cancelled last week.

We use the passive when we want to focus on the
action of the verb rather than on the person who

People speak English in most parts of the

active: world.
English is spoken in most parts of the
passive:
When
theworld.
subject of the active sentence is people,
one, someone / somebody, they, he, etc. We often
omit the agent in the passive sentence.

active: I asked her to read the book.

passive
She was asked to read the book.
:

Object pronouns (me, you, him, etc.) become

subject pronouns (I, you, he, etc.) in the passive.

NOTE
When we are interested more in the action than the
agent, such as in news reports, formal notices,
instructions, processes, headlines,
advertisements, etc.

Cocodriles have been set free

To
make
statements
more formal
or polite.
The
base
have been
broken.
(more

polite)
You have broken the base.

The Agent

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander

Fleming.
The agent (The person who carries out the
action) is introduced with the preposition by
and is mentioned only when the identity of the
agent is important of needs to be stated.

These pancakes were

made with flour, eggs
and milk.

The policeman was stabbed with

a knife.
We use with + instrument / material +
ingredient, etc. To say what the agent

The agent is not mention when:

Jim's car was stolen last
1) it is
night.
unknown.
(We don't know who stole Jim's
car.)
Champagne is made in
France.
2) It is
(The agent is unimportant.)
unimporta
She was given a basket of
nt
fruit as a gift.
(it doesn't matter who gave it.)
3) It is

MORE CASES
Verbs followed by a preposition (look after, accuse
of, etc.) take the preposition immidiately after
them when turned into the passive.

She looks after her daughter

well.

Her daughter is looked after well.

 For verbs which have two objects, it

is more usual to begin the sentence
with the person.
They gave her all the details.
She was given all the details.
(more usual)
All the details were given to her.

 In passive questions with who, whom

or which we do not omit by.
Who offered her the job?

Who was she offered the job by?

 Make, help, see are followed by a toinfinitive in the passive.

They saw him cross the street

He was seen to cross the Street.

 Hear, see, watch can be followed by

a present participle in the active and
passive.
We heard
guitar.

him

playing

the

He was heard playing the guitar.

LETS PRACTICE

Look at the pictures and the prompts and make

sentences using the passive voice.

1. X rays / discover / Wilhelm

Roentgen.
X- rays were discovered by
Wilhelm Roentgen.

he Royal hospital/ open / last Monday.

he Royal hospital was opened last Monday.

3. The crops / destroy / a fire.

The crops were destroyed by a fire.

Visitors / ask / not to smoke in this area.

Visitiros are asked to smoke in this area.

4. The surgery / make / the most famous

doctors.
The surgery was made by the most
famous doctors.

Put the newspaper headlines into the passive

to complete the sentences below.

1. Seaside resort was destroyed by a Hurric

last night on the coast of Florida.
2. Parliament are opening by the queen
today in Westminster.
3. The National lottery was won by an
80-year-old-man.

4. The Worl record was broken by Johnson

at the European Games.
5. Many people were injured when

Southern California was hit by an Earthqua

is made
Wewere damaged

Was given
Are shown

Was stolen

Was made

Were
invited
Was found

APPLE FIGHTS BACK

AGAINST VIRUS
Think your Apple computer is immune?
Think different.
A nasty malware called Flashback has
infected approximately 600,000 Macintosh
computers worldwide. It used a Java
security flaw. Apple is hard at work on a
fix, the company said Tuesday.
The company said that Apple is developing
software that will detect and remove the
Flashback malware.

APPLE FIGHTS BACK

AGAINST VIRUS

NORTH KOREA FUELS

ROCKET
North Korea fueled up a rocket Wednesday
in preparation for an imminent launch.
North Korea named Kim Jong Un the
Workers Party top official and gave his late
father the title of Eternal General
Secretary.
Chief of Command, Paek Chang Ho, said
the rocket is ready for liftoff as soon as he
gives the green light to the engineers. The
rocket
launch
has
raised
tensions

NORTH KOREA FUELS

ROCKET

TORNADO RIPS
THROUGH OKLAHOMA
KILLS
5
PEOPLE
tornado ripped through a northwestern

A
Oklahoma town Saturday.
The tornado
killed at least 5 people. The tornado killed
a man and his two daughters: ages 5 & 7.
The tornado destroyed the trailer park
where they lived.
The other victims were another man and
his 10 year-old daughter who lived in a
town about 2 miles away. And a helicopter
flew another man to a nearby hospital in

TORNADO RIPS
THROUGH OKLAHOMA
KILLS 5 PEOPLE

THANK YOU