22 Feb 2019

THE PASSIVE


Passive voice is formed by…

Subject + finite form of to be + Past Participle

When rewriting active sentences in passive voice, note the following:

Peter builds a house (active)
Passiv
A house is built by Peter (passive)

Remember 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.  In the example My bike was stolen, 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, 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.).

As always, you can go to 'Grammar' to see, download and/or print a document on the passive voice plus an overview on the active/passive 

And now, time to practise!!!!

Exercise 5 (A page with lots of practice!!!)
Exercise 7 (A game)



No comments:

Post a Comment