INGLÉS INSTRUMENTAL

UNIT 10. PASSIVE VOICE

FORM

Somebody built this house in 1935. (active)

subject main verb object

This house was built in 1935. (passive)

object to be + past perfect

PASSIVE TENSES AND ACTIVE EQUIVALENTS

TENSE / VERB FORM ACTIVE VOICE PASSIVE VOICE

Simple present keeps is kept

Present continuous is keeping is being kept
Simple past kept was kept
Past continuous was keeping was being kept
Present perfect have kept have been kept
Past perfect had kept had been kept
Future will keep will be kept
Simple Conditional would keep would be kept
Perfect Conditional would have kept would have been kept
Present infinitive to keep to be kept
Perfect infinitive to have kept to have been kept
Present participle/gerund keeping being kept
Perfect participle having kept having been kept

Important: Notice that the tense of the verb which will be in the passive voice is the
same as the tense of the main verb in the active voice.

Active: Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. Active: They stole the painting.

Passive: Hamlet was written by Shak. Passive: The painting was stolen.

UNIT 10. PASSIVE VOICE

FUNCTION OF THE PASSIVE VOICE

- The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that is affected
by an action rather than the person or object that performs the action. In other
words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the sentence.

The house was built in 1654. = we are interested in the house, not the builder.
The road is being repaired. = we are interested in the road, not the people
repairing it.

- Sometimes we use the passive voice because we don't know or cannot express who or
what performed the action.
I noticed that a window had been left open.
Every year people are killed on our roads.

If we want to say who or what performs the action, we use the preposition by.
"A Hard Day's Night" was written by the Beatles.
ET was directed by Spielberg.

- The passive voice is often used in formal or scientific texts.

A great deal of meaning is conveyed by a few well-chosen words.
Our planet is wrapped in a mass of gases.
Waste materials are disposed of in a variety of ways.

EXERCISES

1. Rewrite the sentences with the passives.

1. They sell cold drinks here.

2. They subtitle a lot of foreign films.

3. Someone threw the letters away by mistake.

4. Some people are painting my house.

UNIT 10. PASSIVE VOICE

 5. They have sold all the tickets for the concert.

6. They will play the match tomorrow.

7. Someone must pay this bill tomorrow.

2. Complete the sentences by putting the verbs into the correct passive tense.

1. The country with the smallest film industry is Iceland, where only three films
every year. (make)

2. More than 26,000 costumes in the 1963 film

Cleopatra. (use)
3. In the near future more films on computers than at
the cinema. (see)
4. The most filmed character is Sherlock Holmes. Until now, more than 200 different
films about him. (make)

5. Spielberg’s film The Color Purple for 11 Oscars in 1985,

but didn’t win any. (nominate)
6. Macaulay Culkin $4.5 million dollars for his role in
Home Alone in 1990. (pay) This was a record for a child at the time.
7. The director Stanley Kubrick died while his film Artificial Intelligence
(make). Spielberg to
finish the film. (ask)
8. When the actress Marilyn Monroe died of a drugs overdose in 1962, many people
believed that she by the CIA. (murder)

9. Over 300,000 extras for the crowd scenes in the film

Gandhi. (use)
10. At this very moment, thousands of films all over the
world. (make)

3. Active or passive? Choose the correct form.

The Piano won/was won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993. It
directed/was directed by Jane Campion, and it starred Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel.
It set/is set in New Zealand in the 19th century, and is about a Scottish woman, Ada,
who sends/is sent there by her parents to marry a local man. She only takes/is taken

UNIT 10. PASSIVE VOICE

 two things with her: her daughter and her piano. Ada never speaks/is spoken, and has
a very unhappy time with her new husband, who is a violent man. Ada falls/is fallen in
love with a neighbour and finally she rescues/is rescued by him from her husband,
and in her new life she learns/is learned to speak again. The unforgettable soundtrack
wrote/was written by Michael Nyman, and millions of copies of the CD have sold/have
been sold all over the world.

UNIT 10. PASSIVE VOICE