¡Hola a todos!
Hoy voy a hablar sobre la voz passiva en inglés, conocida como "passive voice". Es un tema que suele generar bastantes dudas a mis alumnos durante las clases de inglés, por lo que veo interesante tratarlo.
Passive voice
• Active voice → focus on the subject / agent
- Everyone loves chocolate
• Passive voice → focus on the object / patient
- Chocolate is loved by everyone
Object pronouns
- He recorded the video → The video was recorded by him
I → me It → it
You → you We → us
He → him They → them
She → her
HOW do we transform an active sentence in a passive sentence?
1º - Object → Subject
2º - se añade el verbo “to be” en el tiempo verbal que este el verbo de la oración activa
3º - tras el verbo “to be” va el verbo de la oración activa en past participle (3º columna)
4º - Subject → Object (complemento agente)
S V O
The teacher corrects exams in May
S V O
Exams are corrected by the teacher in May
structure: subject + to be [any tense] + past participle (3º column) + (by someone)
WHAT FOR?
• The agent is unknown / obvious / irrelevant (you can omit the agent)
- My phone was stolen
• You don’t want to say who or what did the action
- I was told that you lied to me
• If the object is the most important part of the message
- My favourite movie was released in 2014
• It is commonly used in formal situations (news, emails, work…) but there are exceptions like:
- I was born in 1999
- He is called Tony
• The passive is commonly used when we talk about crime
- The car was stolen by the mob
Modals
Modals (should, would, can, could, may, might, must) stay the same, then add “to be” in the base form, finally the main verb changes to past participle.
modal + be + past participle
- My dad will lose the case → The case will be lost
What are we implying in these sentences? [C1]
They gave me the first price
The first prize was given to me
I was given the first prize
Active Voice:
(EN) I give her a present.
(ES) Yo le doy a ella un regalo.
Passive Voice I:
(EN) A present is given to her.
(ES) Un regalo le es dado a ella.
Passive Voice II:
(EN) She is given a present.
- El complemento indirecto de la voz activa se convierte en el sujeto de la voz pasiva
