Passive voice

Passive Voice

By Agustina Ruffinelli González

USED OF THE PASSIVE VOICE

PASSIVE VOICE IS USED WHEN THE FOCUS IS ON THE ACTION.

Sometimes the passive voice is used to announce

something in a more polite way: “A mistake was made”, in this way I am not blaming anyone for the mistake but I

focus on the fact that a mistake was made and that

is has to be corrected

Murder is punished by the Law.

Passive voice is also used when we talk about a general truth:

It is used in scientific articles, to focus on the experiment:

Insulin was discovered

In 1921 in Canada.

It is commonly used in instruction books to describe a machine maintenance:

It is advisable to increase the disk memory so software

problems can be avoided in the future

GRAMMAR RULES

The passive voice is formed using the verb to be + past participle of the main verb

To transform an active voice into passive we need to take into account the following rules

• The object in the active sentence becomes the subject in the passive voice:

Active: “My mother carries the bags” /

“The bags are carried by my mother “ (Passive) 

There are changes of tenses when you pass an active voice into passive:

With modals verbs:

Examples of PassiveVoice:

-Reporters write new reports “New reports are written by reporters

-Mike is baking a cake“A cake is being baked by Mike”

-Jeah Rhys wrote Wide Saragasso Sea“Wide Saragasso Sea was witten by Jeah Rhys

-They were decorating the wall when I arrived “The hall was being decorated when I arrived.”

-Lisa has recorded a song. “A song has been recored by Lisa”

-They are going to knock down the old library -”The old library is going to be knocked down.”

-I will make it tomorrow. “It will be made tomorrow”

-I have to write a letter “The letter has to be written”

-I should write a letter “The letter should be written”

-I must write a letter. “The letter must be written”

FINAL REVIEW

FINISHED