Everything About Passive Voice - Full English Lesson

Breaking English

25 May 202128:05

EducationalLearning

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TLDRThe video script offers an in-depth exploration of the passive voice in English grammar. It begins by contrasting the passive voice with the active voice, emphasizing that in passive sentences, the subject receives the action rather than performing it. The speaker illustrates how to construct passive sentences using various forms of the verb 'to be' followed by the past participle of the main verb. The script also highlights that passive voice is formed from transitive verbs, which must have an object. It further explains how to create passive sentences in different tenses, including present, past, and future, as well as passive voice questions and negatives. The video also addresses common mistakes to avoid, such as attempting to use intransitive verbs in the passive form. The speaker then delves into the reasons for using the passive voice, including focusing on the object of the sentence, avoiding repetition of the subject, omitting the doer of an action to de-emphasize responsibility or to maintain objectivity, which is particularly important in scientific and academic writing. The summary underscores the importance of the passive voice in maintaining cohesion in writing and its utility in various contexts.

Takeaways

📚 **Active Voice vs. Passive Voice**: The active voice has the subject performing the action (e.g., Mary gave me a book), while the passive voice has the subject receiving the action (e.g., I was given a book by Mary).
🔄 **Formation of Passive Voice**: The passive voice is formed using a form of the verb 'be' or 'get' followed by the past participle of the main verb (e.g., Books are written by Carlos).
❗ **Transitive Verb Requirement**: Only transitive verbs (verbs with an object) can be used in the passive voice because the object becomes the subject in passive sentences.
📉 **Passive Voice in Tenses**: Any active voice sentence with a transitive verb can be converted into the passive voice across various tenses, including present, past, future, and perfect tenses.
🚫 **Negative and Question Formation**: Passive voice sentences can be made negative by adding 'not' after the 'be' verb and turned into questions by moving the 'be' verb to the beginning.
📝 **Academic and Formal Writing**: The passive voice is often used in academic writing, scientific reports, and formal documents to maintain objectivity and focus on the action rather than the performer.
🔍 **Focus and Cohesion**: The passive voice can help to focus on the object of the sentence and create cohesion in writing by starting sentences with the subject of interest.
🤫 **Avoiding Blame or Unwanted Attention**: Using the passive voice can help to avoid assigning blame or drawing negative attention to the person performing the action in certain contexts.
🔄 **Repetition Reduction**: The passive voice can be used to avoid repetitively mentioning the subject, especially when the doer of the action is already clear or not important to the context.
❌ **Common Mistakes**: One common mistake is attempting to use the passive voice with intransitive verbs (verbs without an object), which is not grammatically possible.
📈 **Cohesion and Coherence**: The passive voice can enhance the flow of information in a text by strategically placing the focus on certain elements to maintain coherence.

Q & A

What is the main difference between active and passive voice?
-In the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action of the verb. In the passive voice, the subject of the sentence receives the action of the verb.
How is the passive voice grammatically constructed?
-The passive voice is constructed using a form of the verb 'be' followed by the past participle of the main verb. Optionally, it can include a 'by' phrase indicating the agent performing the action.
What is a transitive verb and why is it important for passive voice construction?
-A transitive verb is a verb that takes an object. It is important for passive voice construction because a verb must have an object to be transformed into the passive voice.
How can you make a sentence in the passive voice negative?
-To make a passive voice sentence negative, you simply insert the word 'not' after the first helping verb (a form of 'be').
What are some reasons for using the passive voice in writing?
-The passive voice can be used to focus on the object of the action, avoid repeating the subject, omit the doer of the action to avoid blame or negative attention, and to maintain objectivity, especially in scientific or formal writing.
How do you form a question in the passive voice?
-To form a question in the passive voice, you move the first helping verb (a form of 'be') to the front of the sentence before the subject. Unlike active voice questions, you do not need to add a new helping verb.
What is the past participle form of a verb and why is it important?
-The past participle is the third form of a verb, often used in perfect tenses and always used in passive constructions. It is important because it signifies the completed action when combined with a form of the verb 'be'.
Can all verbs be used in the passive voice?
-No, only transitive verbs (verbs that take an object) can be used in the passive voice, as the passive voice requires an object to move into the subject position.
What is the function of the 'by' phrase in a passive voice sentence?
-The 'by' phrase in a passive voice sentence indicates the agent performing the action. It is optional and can be omitted if the doer of the action is unknown, irrelevant, or if you want to avoid focusing on the doer.
How does the passive voice help in maintaining objectivity in scientific reports?
-The passive voice helps maintain objectivity in scientific reports by removing the researcher or the subject performing the action from the sentence, allowing the focus to be on the action or the research findings themselves.
What is the structure for forming the passive voice in different tenses?
-The structure for forming the passive voice in different tenses involves using the appropriate form of the verb 'be' that matches the tense, followed by the past participle of the main verb. For example, 'are written' for present passive, 'were written' for past passive, 'are being written' for present progressive passive, etc.
Why might someone avoid using the passive voice in certain contexts?
-Some people might avoid using the passive voice in certain contexts because it can make sentences sound more formal or less direct. Additionally, it can obscure who is performing the action, which may not be desirable in contexts where clarity and directness are important.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Active and Passive Voice

This paragraph introduces the concept of active and passive voice in English grammar. It explains that in active voice, the subject performs the action, while in passive voice, the subject receives the action. The paragraph uses the example of 'Mary gave me a book' to illustrate active voice and 'I was given a book by Mary' for passive voice. It also discusses the grammatical structure of passive voice, which requires a form of the verb 'be' plus the past participle of the main verb. Additionally, it clarifies that the 'by' phrase is optional and can be omitted.

05:01

🔍 Formation and Use of Passive Voice

The second paragraph delves into how to form the passive voice and when it is appropriate to use it. It emphasizes that passive voice sentences must start with a transitive verb, which is a verb that takes an object. The paragraph provides a step-by-step guide on how to convert active sentences into passive by switching the subject and object positions and using the correct form of 'be' plus the past participle. It also covers how to create passive sentences in different tenses, such as present, past, and future, and how to form negative and interrogative passive sentences.

10:02

🚫 Common Mistakes with Passive Voice

This paragraph highlights common mistakes to avoid when using the passive voice. It stresses that passive voice can only be used with transitive verbs, which are verbs that have a direct object. It provides examples of intransitive verbs, like 'happen' and 'sleep', which cannot be used in the passive voice because they do not take an object. The paragraph also demonstrates incorrect attempts to form passive sentences with these verbs, reinforcing the importance of understanding the transitive nature of verbs before attempting to use passive voice.

15:05

📝 When to Use Passive Voice

The fourth paragraph discusses various scenarios where passive voice is the preferred grammatical structure. It explains that passive voice is often used to emphasize the object of the sentence, maintain cohesion in writing by avoiding repetition of the subject, and to de-emphasize or omit the doer of an action. Examples given include academic writing, where the focus might be on the action rather than the actor, and situations where the identity of the person performing the action is unknown or unimportant. The paragraph also touches on the use of passive voice in formal or official contexts where direct attribution of actions might be undesirable.

20:05

🔑 Passive Voice in Scientific Writing

The final paragraph focuses on the use of passive voice in scientific reports and lab work. It explains that the passive voice is crucial in these contexts to maintain objectivity and to keep the focus on the research findings rather than the researchers themselves. The paragraph contrasts active voice sentences, which highlight the researchers' actions, with passive voice equivalents, which remove the researchers from the sentence and make the text more impersonal and scientific. This approach is deemed essential for presenting research in a neutral and factual manner.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Passive Voice

The passive voice is a grammatical structure where the subject of the sentence is acted upon by the verb, rather than performing the action. In the video, it is contrasted with the active voice, where the subject performs the action. The passive voice is used to emphasize the receiver of the action, as seen in the example 'I was given a book by Mary', where the focus is on the book being given rather than who gave it.

💡Active Voice

Active voice is a grammatical structure where the subject of a sentence performs the action expressed by the verb. It is the default and most common voice used in English. In the video, the active voice is demonstrated with sentences like 'Mary gave me a book', where 'Mary' is the subject doing the action of giving.

💡Past Participle

The past participle is a form of a verb that is used to express a completed action or state. It often appears in perfect tenses and in passive voice constructions. In the video, the past participle is used in conjunction with forms of the verb 'be' to create the passive voice, as in 'a book was given'.

💡Transitive Verb

A transitive verb is an action verb that requires one or more objects to complete its meaning. In the context of the video, transitive verbs are essential for forming the passive voice because they take an object that can be moved to the subject position. For instance, 'write' is a transitive verb in 'Carlos writes books', which can be transformed into the passive 'Books are written by Carlos'.

💡Be Verb

The verb 'be' is a form of the verb that indicates existence, state, or identity. In the video, it is used as a helping verb to construct the passive voice. Various forms of 'be' (am, is, are, was, were, being, been) are combined with the past participle of the main verb to form passive voice sentences, such as 'Books are written'.

💡Past Perfect Passive

The past perfect passive is a verb tense used to describe an action that was completed before another action in the past. It is formed by combining the past perfect tense of the verb 'be' with the past participle of the main verb. In the video, it is exemplified in sentences like 'Books had been written by Carlos', which indicates that the writing was completed before some other past event.

💡Present Perfect Progressive Passive

This is a complex verb tense that describes an ongoing action that started in the past and continues to the present. In the passive voice, it is formed with 'being' plus the past participle of the main verb. The video illustrates this with 'Books are being written by Carlos', indicating that the action of writing books is currently in progress.

💡Modal Verbs

Modal verbs express possibility, ability, permission, or obligation. In the video, it is mentioned that when using modal verbs like 'will', the main verb that follows must be in its base form. This is important when constructing future passive voice sentences, such as 'Books will be written by Carlos', where 'will' is the modal verb and 'be written' is the passive voice construction.

💡

💡Negative Passive Voice

The negative form of the passive voice is created by adding the word 'not' after the form of the verb 'be'. It is used to indicate that the action was not performed. In the video, sentences like 'Books are not written' are used to demonstrate the negative passive voice, clearly stating that the books do not undergo the action of being written.

💡Question Formation in Passive Voice

Forming questions in the passive voice involves moving the first auxiliary verb (typically a form of 'be') to the beginning of the sentence, followed by the subject. This is shown in the video with examples like 'Is the food being eaten?', where 'being eaten' is the passive voice, and the question is formed by moving 'is' before 'the food'.

💡Cohesion and Coherence

Cohesion and coherence refer to the logical and coherent flow of ideas in a text. In the video, the passive voice is used to enhance cohesion by starting sentences with the same noun (e.g., 'Nachos are eaten') to maintain focus and create a smooth transition between sentences, which is particularly useful in academic writing.

💡Objectivity in Writing

Objectivity in writing means presenting information in a way that is unbiased and factual. The video explains that the passive voice is often used in scientific reports and lab experiments to maintain objectivity by removing the doer of the action from the sentence, such as 'The experiment was conducted' instead of 'We conducted the experiment'.

Highlights

The passive voice is explained, contrasting it with the active voice where the subject performs the action.

Active voice structure is subject-verb, whereas passive voice is be-verb + past participle.

Passive voice can omit the agent (the doer of the action), indicated by the optional 'by' phrase.

To form passive voice, the sentence must first be valid in active voice, requiring a transitive verb with an object.

Intransitive verbs, which do not take an object, cannot be used in the passive voice.

Demonstration of how to switch subjects and objects to form the passive voice from an active sentence.

All active verb forms and tenses can be converted into the passive voice, provided the verb is transitive.

Combining the progressive verb form with the passive voice, as in 'books are being written by Carlos'.

Present perfect and past perfect tenses can also be structured in the passive voice to indicate completed actions.

Formation of passive voice questions and negatives is simplified by the presence of a 'be' verb.

Common mistakes when attempting to use the passive voice with intransitive verbs are discussed.

Passive voice is often used to focus on the object of the sentence or for stylistic reasons, such as creating cohesion.

The passive voice can be used to avoid repeating the subject, especially when the doer is not the focus.

It can also be employed to avoid assigning blame or to maintain objectivity, such as in scientific reports.

In academic writing, passive voice is prevalent for objectivity and to de-emphasize the performer of the action.

The use of passive voice in scientific writing is emphasized for its objectivity and detachment from the researchers.

Tips for using passive voice effectively in speech and writing are provided.

Transcripts

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