English, baby!

Hid the truth! With passive voice!

Date: Mar 07 2008

Author: mitchelk

Lesson

Did you do something bad? Did your brother do your English homework? Did you drink the last beer?

With passive voice, you can describe actions without telling who did it.

For example, normally you would have to say, "I spilled the beer." With passive voice, you can say, "the beer was spilled."

The two sentences mean the same thing, except with passive voice you don't know who spilled the beer.

Ok, so now you know that the passive voice can be useful, but how do you make it?

First, let's review normal sentences. Normal sentences have: subject + verb + object

The subject is the person or thing that is doing something.
The verb is the action.
The object is the thing being acted on.

An example would be:

The dog bit the man.

The dog is the subject.
Bit is the verb.
The man is the object.

To make a sentence passive:

Put the object first, put the verb to be in the same tense as the normal sentence and add the past particle of the verb. And if you would like to tell who did it add by.

Object + Verb to be + past participle (by + Subject).

The man was bitten by the dog.
OR
The man was bitten.

I will give a few more examples:

Present Tense:
Active: She eats cheese. Passive: The cheese is eaten.
Active: I love him. Passive: He is loved.
Active: I stole the bike. Passive: The bike was stolen by me.

Past Tense:
Active: The fire destroyed the town. Passive: The town was destroyed.
Active: I wrote you a letter. Passive: A letter was written to you by me.
Active: I watched TV. Passive: TV was watched by me.

Now, can you guys try to make a few passive sentences in the comments. I will check back and make sure they are all correct. Give it a try!

Comments

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futurenurse

Taiwan

i love the lesson^^

futurenurse

Taiwan

thanks.

i learned anymore^^

i listened to the radio. the radio was listened by me!!

momenco

Sudan

HI I hit my fried , my friend was hitten by me

thomas7888

China

The door's locked, the key is lost, so how can I got in my own home? The answer is break through the window.

Julitschka

Ukraine

It was good!

lingpingbaby

China

You hurt my heart

My heart was hurt

Ono

Hungary

:D The lesson was understood

mitchelk

United States

You guys really are getting it. Great job, just make sure you use were with plural subjects and you. I really am impressed

bskyjolin

China

....ye,i can try it ,,,i ate some delicious biscuits…....

some delicious biscuits was aten by me.it is very useful.thank u

say it right

Turkey

hi. millimono should,coulld and would are not verbs they are modals.example for passive

U hid the truth.=the truth was hidden by u

Nightmare69

Saudi Arabia

It was nice lesson

millimono

Guinea

Hi , I'm a member of Ebaby . My problems in English are often among these verbs. How and when we can use them at the right place ? Could , should and would.

I really need further explanation concerning these verbs