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| All about The passive voice in English Grammar By Mr.Zaki Badr |
In this article, I'm to tell you all you need to know about the passive voice in English grammar:
- The passive voice forms in different tenses examples
- How to form the passive voice examples
- Active voice vs Passive Voice examples
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| All about The passive voice in English Grammar By Mr.Zaki Badr |
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| Active and passive voice |
Use 1 of Passive
Passive voice is used when the focus is
on the action. It is not important or not known, however, who or what is
performing the action.
Example: My bike was stolen.
In
the example above, the focus is on the
fact that my bike was stolen.
I do not know, however, who did it.
Sometimes
a statement in passive
is more polite
than active voice, as the following example
shows:
Example:
A mistake was made.
In
this case, I focus on the fact that a mistake was made, but I do not blame
anyone (e.g. You have made a mistake.).
Use 1 of Passive
when
the main topic of the sentence isn’t who did the action.
Ex:-
Television was invented in the
1920s by John Logie Baird.
The main topic here is television –
we aren’t particularly interested in ‘who’.
Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
In English we tend to put the most
important thing at the start of the sentence.
Use 2 of Passive
..more in written English than
in spoken English.
War and Peace was written by
Tolstoy.
You often see the passive in textbooks.
The mixture is heated to 500˚C.
Scientific texts especially use the
passive.
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| The verb to be in all tenses |
How to use the passive? passive form
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How to use the passive? passive form
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Form of Passive
Subject + verb to be + Past Participle (3rd column of irregular verbs)
Example: A letter was written.
When rewriting active sentences in
passive voice, note the following:
•the
object of
the active sentence becomes the subject of
the passive sentence
•the
finite form of the verb is changed (to be +
past participle)
•the
subject of
the active sentence becomes the object of
the passive sentence (or is dropped)
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| Form of passive in present simple and present continuous |
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| Form of passive in past continuous and past simple tenses |
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| Form of passive in present perfect and present perfect continuous |
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| Form of passive in the past perfect and past perfect continuous tenses |
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| Form of Passive in the future simple and future simple continuous tenses |
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| Form of Passive in the future perfect tense |