SIMPLE PRESENT and SIMPLE PAST The active object becomes the passive subject.

am/is/are + past participle was/were + past participle Active: Simple Present The movie fascinates me. The movie bores Jack. The movie surprises them. Active: Simple Past The movie bored me. The movie fascinated Jack. The movie surprised them. Passive: Simple Present I am fascinated by the movie. Jack is bored by the movie. They are surprised by the movie. Passive: Simple Past I was bored by the movie. Jack was fascinated by the movie. They were surprisedby the movie.

PRESENT and PAST CONTINUOUS (PROGRESSIVE) Passive form: am/is/are + being + past participle was/were + being + past participle Active: Present Continuous I am helping Shannon. June is helping Su and Ling. Active: Past Continuous I was cleaning the bathroom. They were cleaning the bedroom. Susan was cleaning the kitchen and patio. Passive: Present Continuous Shannon is being helped by me. Su and Ling are being helped by June. Passive: Past Continuous The bathroom was being cleaned by me. The bedroom was being cleaned by them. The kitchen and patio were being cleaned by Susan.

PRESENT PERFECT, PAST PERFECT and FUTURE PERFECT Passive form: have/has been + past participle had been + past participle Active: Present Perfect I have mailed the gift. Jack has mailed the gifts. Active: Past Perfect Steven Spielberg had directed the movie. Penny Marshall had directed those movies. Active: Future Perfect John will have finished the project next month. They will have finished the projects before then. Passive: Present Perfect The gift has been mailed by me. The gifts have been mailed by Jack. Passive: Past Perfect The movie had been directed by Steven Spielberg. The movies had been directed by Penny Marshall. Passive: Future Perfect The project will have been finished by next month. The projects will have been finished before then.

FUTURE TENSES Passive forms: will + be + past participle is/are going to be + past participle Active: Future with WILL I will mail the gift. Jack will mail the gifts. Active: Future with GOING TO I am going to make the cake. Sue is going to make two cakes. Passive: Future with WILL The gift will be mailed by me. The gifts will be mailed by Jack. Passive: Future with GOING TO The cake is going to be made by me. Two cakes are going to be made by Sue.

PRESENT / FUTURE MODALS The passive form follows this pattern: modal + be + past participle Active: WILL / WON'T (WILL NOT) Passive: WILL / WON'T (WILL NOT)

Sharon will invite Tom to the party. Sharon won't invite Jeff to the party. (Sharon will not invite Jeff to the party.) Active: CAN / CAN'T (CAN NOT) Mai can foretell the future. Terry can't foretell the future. (Terry can not foretell the future.)

Tom will be invited to the party by Sharon. Jeff won't be invited to the party by Sharon. (Jeff will not be invited to the party by Sharon.) Passive: CAN / CAN'T (CAN NOT) The future can be foretold by Mai. The future can't be foretold by Terry. (The future can not be foretold by Terry.) Passive: MAY / MAY NOT Katya may be given a new office by her company. The homework may not be done by the lazy students. MIGHT / MIGHT NOT Katya might be given a new office by her company. The homework might not be done by the lazy students. Passive: SHOULD / SHOULDN'T English verbs should be memorized by students. Cigarettes shouldn't be smoked by children. Passive: OUGHT TO English verbs ought to be memorized by students.

Active: MAY / MAY NOT Her company may give Katya a new office. The lazy students may not do the homework. MIGHT / MIGHT NOT Her company might give Katya a new office. The lazy students might not do the homework.

Active: SHOULD / SHOULDN'T Students should memorize English verbs. Children shouldn't smoke cigarettes. Active: OUGHT TO Students ought to learn English verbs. (negative ought to is rarely used)

Active: HAD BETTER / HAD BETTER NOT Students had better practice English every day. Children had better not drink whiskey.

Passive: HAD BETTER / HAD BETTER NOT English had better be practiced every day by students. Whiskey had better not be drunk by children. Passive: MUST / MUST NOT A passport to travel abroad must be applied for. That door must not be used by customers.

Active: MUST / MUST NOT Tourists must apply for a passport to travel abroad. Customers must not use that door. Active: HAS TO / HAVE TO She has to practice English every day. Sara and Miho have to wash the dishes every day. DOESN'T HAVE TO/ DON'T HAVE TO Maria doesn't have to clean her bedroom every day. The children don't have to clean their bedrooms every day.

Passive: HAS TO / HAVE TO English has to be practiced every day. The dishes have to be washed by them every day. DOESN'T HAVE TO/ DON'T HAVE TO Her bedroom doesn't have to be cleaned every day. Their bedrooms don't have to be cleaned every day.

Active: BE SUPPOSED TO I am supposed to type the composition. I am not supposed to copy the stories in the book. Janet is supposed to clean the living room. She isn't supposed to eat candy and gum. They are supposed to make dinner for the family. They aren't supposed to make dessert.

Passive: BE SUPPOSED TO The composition is supposed to be typed by me. The stories in the book are not supposed to be copied. The living room is supposed to be cleaned by Janet. Candy and gum aren't supposed to be eaten by her. Dinner for the family is supposed to be made by them. Dessert isn't supposed to be made by them.

PAST MODALS The past passive form follows this pattern: modal + have been + past participle Passive: SHOULD HAVE / SHOULDN'T HAVE The verbs should have been learned by the students. The window shouldn't have been broken by the children. Passive: OUGHT TO The verbs ought to have been learned by the students. Passive: BE SUPPOSED TO (past time)

Active: SHOULD HAVE / SHOULDN'T HAVE The students should have learned the verbs. The children shouldn't have broken the window.

Active: OUGHT TO Students ought to have learned the verbs. (negative ought to is rarely used) Active: BE SUPPOSED TO (past time)

I was supposed to type the composition. I wasn't supposed to copy the story in the book. Janet was supposed to clean the living room. She wasn't supposed to eat candy and gum. Frank and Jane were supposed to make dinner. They weren't supposed to make dessert.

The composition was supposed to be typed by me. The story in the book wasn't supposed to be copied. The living room was supposed to be cleaned by Janet. Candy and gum weren't supposed to be eaten by her. Dinner was supposed to be made by them. Dessert wasn't supposed to be made by them. Passive: MAY / MAY NOT Katya may have been offered a new job by that firm. The paper may not have been written by the students. MIGHT / MIGHT NOT Katya might have been offered a new job by that firm. The paper might not have been written by the students.

Active: MAY / MAY NOT That firm may have offered Katya a new job. The students may not have written the paper. MIGHT / MIGHT NOT That firm might have offered Katya a new job. The students might not have written the paper.

Passive Voice The passive voice is less usual than the active voice. The active voice is the "normal" voice. But sometimes we need the passive voice. In this lesson we look at how to construct the passive voice, when to use it and how to conjugate it. Construction of the Passive Voice The structure of the passive voice is very simple: subject + auxiliary verb (be) + main verb (past participle) The main verb is always in its past participle form. Look at these examples: subject Water 100 people I We Are auxiliary verb (to be) is are am are they not main verb (past participle) drunk employed paid paid paid by everyone. by this company. in euro. in dollars. in yen?

Use of the Passive Voice We use the passive when:

y y

we want to make the active object more important we do not know the active subject subject verb was killed has been stolen. object by Lee Harvey Oswald. ?

give importance to active object (President Kennedy) active subject unknown

President Kennedy My wallet

Note that we always use by to introduce the passive object (Fish are eaten by cats). Look at this sentence:

y He was killed with a gun. Normally we use by to introduce the passive object. But the gun is not the active subject. The gun did not kill him. He was killed by somebody with a gun. In the active voice, it would be: Somebody killed him with a gun. The gun is the instrument. Somebody is the "agent" or "doer". Conjugation for the Passive Voice We can form the passive in any tense. In fact, conjugation of verbs in the passive tense is rather easy, as the main verb is always in past participle form and the auxiliary verb is always be. To form the required tense, we conjugate the auxiliary verb. So, for example: y y y
present simple: It is made present continuous: It is being made

present perfect: It has been made Here are some examples with most of the possible tenses: infinitive to be washed

simple

present past future conditional

It is washed. It was washed. It will be washed. It would be washed. It is being washed. It was being washed. It will be being washed. It would be being washed. It has been washed. It had been washed. It will have been washed. It would have been washed. It has been being washed. It had been being washed. It will have been being washed. It would have been being washed.

continuous

present past future conditional

perfect simple

present past future conditional

perfect continuous

present past future conditional

Passive and Active Voices Verbs are also said to be either active (The executive committee approved the new policy) or passive (The new policy was approved by the executive committee) in voice. In the active voice, the subject and verb relationship is straightforward: the subject is a be-er or a doer and the verb moves the sentence along. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is neither a do-er or a be-er, but is acted upon by some other agent or by something unnamed (The new policy was approved). Computerized grammar checkers can pick out a passive voice construction from miles away and ask you to revise it to a more active construction. There is nothing inherently wrong with the passive voice, but if you can say the same thing in the active mode, do so (see exceptions below). Your text will have more pizzazz as a result, since passive verb constructions tend to lie about in their pajamas and avoid actual work. We find an overabundance of the passive voice in sentences created by self-protective business interests, magniloquent educators, and bombastic military writers (who must get weary of this accusation), who use the passive voice to avoid responsibility for actions taken. Thus "Cigarette ads were designed to appeal especially to children" places the burden on the ads as opposed to "We designedthe cigarette ads to appeal especially to children," in which "we" accepts responsibility. At a White House press briefing we might hear that "The President was advised that certain members of Congress were being audited" rather than "The Head of the Internal Revenue service advised the President that her agency was auditing certain members of Congress" because the passive construction avoids responsibility for advising and for auditing. One further caution about the passive voice: we should not mix active and passive constructions in the same sentence: "The executive committeeapproved the new policy, and the calendar for next year's meetings was revised" should be recast as "The executive committee approved the new policy and revised the calendar for next year's meeting." Take the quiz (below) as an exercise in recognizing and changing passive verbs. The passive voice does exist for a reason, however, and its presence is not always to be despised. The passive is particularly useful (even recommended) in two situations:

y y

When it is more important to draw our attention to the person or thing acted upon: The unidentified victim was apparently struck during the early morning hours.

When the actor in the situation is not important: The aurora borealis can be observed in the early morning hours. The passive voice is especially helpful (and even regarded as mandatory) in scientific or technical writing or lab reports, where the actor is not really important but the process or principle being described is of ultimate importance. Instead of writing "I poured 20 cc of acid into the beaker," we would write "Twenty cc of acid is/was poured into the beaker." The passive voice is also useful when describing, say, a mechanical process in which the details of process are much more important than anyone's taking responsibility for the action: "The first coat of primer paint is applied immediately after the acid rinse." We use the passive voice to good effect in a paragraph in which we wish to shift emphasis from what was the object in a first sentence to what becomes the subject in subsequent sentences. The executive committee approved an entirely new policy for dealing with academic suspension and withdrawal. The policy had been written by a subcommittee on student behavior. If students withdraw from course work before suspension can take effect, the policy states, a mark of "IW" . . . . The paragraph is clearly about this new policy so it is appropriate that policy move from being the object in the first sentence to being the subject of the second sentence. The passive voice allows for this transition. Passive Verb Formation

The passive forms of a verb are created by combining a form of the "to be verb" with the past participle of the main verb. Other helping verbs are also sometimes present: "The measure could have been killed in committee." The passive can be used, also, in various tenses. Let's take a look at the passive forms of "design." Auxiliary Tense Subject Singular Present Present perfect Past Past perfect Future Future perfect Present progressive Past progressive The car/cars The car/cars The car/cars The car/cars The car/cars The car/cars The car/cars The car/cars is has been was had been will be will have been is being was being Plural are have been were had been will be will have been are being were being Past Participle designed. designed. designed. designed. designed. designed. designed. designed.

A sentence cast in the passive voice will not always include an agent of the action. For instance if a gorilla crushes a tin can, we could say "The tin can was crushed by the gorilla." But a perfectly good sentence would leave out the gorilla: "The tin can was crushed." Also, when an active sentence with an indirect object is recast in the passive, the indirect object can take on the role of subject in the passive sentence:

Active Passive Passive

Professor Villa gave Jorge an A. An A was given to Jorge by Professor Villa. Jorge was given an A.

Only transitive verbs (those that take objects) can be transformed into passive constructions. Furthermore, active sentences containing certain verbs cannot be transformed into passive structures. To have is the most important of these verbs. We can say "He has a new car," but we cannot say "A new car is had by him." We can say "Josefina lacked finesse," but we cannot say "Finesse was lacked." Here is a brief list of such verbs*: resemble mean lack look like contain suit equal hold fit agree with comprise become