passive

USE

• When we are interested in the object

• when we don't know who caused the action

We form a passive sentence from an active sentence, when there is an object in the active sentence.

FORM

to be + past participle

• The object of the 'active' sentence becomes subject in the 'passive' sentence.

• The subject of the 'active' sentence becomes object in the 'passive' sentence (or.. it's left out!)

PRESENT SIMPLE Active: Pere builds a house

Passive: A house is built by Pere

PAST SIMPLE Active: Pere built a house

Passive: A house was built by Pere

PASSIVE SENTENCES WITH 'BY'

• We are normally not interested in the "doer" of an action in a passive sentence. When we want to mention the "doer", we use the preposition by.

• The whole phrase is called by-agent in English.

Mr. Pérez built the house The house was built by Mr. Pérez

• • When we don't know who was the 'doer' of the action, we use someone or somebody in the active sentence.

Someone stole my bike My bike was stolen

PASSIVE SENTENCES WITH TWO OBJECTS

• • Rewriting an active sentence with two objects in passive voice means that one of the two objects becomes the subject, the other one remains an object. Which object to transform into a subject depends on what you want to put the focus on.

• • As you can see in the examples, adding by Andreu does not sound very elegant. That’s why it is usually dropped.

EXERCISES 1 2 3 4