PASSIVE & ACTIVE VOICE

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Passive & Active voices

Learn how to use passive and active voice in English

Lesson 2

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Passive and Active voice

Passive voice

Forming passive voice

Using passive voice

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Active voice

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Active voice

Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. It is used to describe what the subject is doing. Sentences in the active voice have a strong, direct, and clear tone.

EX : Monkeys adore bananas.

Object

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Passive voice

The passive voice is when we want to give more importance to the action. It is always constructed with a conjugated form of to be plus the verb’s past participle.

EX : Bananas are loved by monkeys

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Forming passive voice

TO FORM PASSIVE VOICE YOU NEED

SUJET + BE + Participe passé

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Using passive voice

In which case do I have to use passive voice ?

• When you don't know who realised the action EX : My phone has been stolen
• When you want to give importance to the action or the object EX : The car was driven by him yesterday.
• Passive voice very often use the preposition "by".
• You can also use passive voice to talk about the most important subject of the sentence EX : The vegetables are all grown by local farmers.
• With the "BE+ING" form, passive voice is constructed like this : "Being + P.Participle" EX : I hate being talked to at the library.