ÓSCAR, MONDAY 16th MARCH, 18:15 - 19:15

Hey guys, what’s up!?

It’s your spectacularly and awesomely awesome amazing teacher Óscar!

I hope you’re doing fine during this break (remember, not vacation). It’s time for one of our lessons -virtual, this time-. Did you really think English class was over?

In today’s lesson we’re gonna catch up with one of our forgotten and most tricky topics of this year: the passive voice.

I know some of you know full well about this (Adrián and Clara you are clearly well native speakers), but for those of you who aren’t, let’s go over the theory.

Firstly, we must differentiate between active voice and passive voice. For example:

Active voice à  María did all the exercises (María hizo todos los ejercicios)

Passive voice à All of the exercises were done -by María- (Todos los ejercicios fueron hechos -por María-)

 When and why do we use it?

1.       When we ignore the subject.

                           Ex: A bank has been robbed.

                           Ex: Someone was infected

2.       To give importance to the action rather than who did it.

Grammatical rules

Always BE + PAST PARTICIPLE, although it may vary.

Here’s an explanation in Spanish for those of you who are a bit lost.

1. El objeto/complemento directo de la oración activa pasa a ser el sujeto de la pasiva.

2. El verbo principal se sustituye por el auxiliar “to be”, en su mismo tiempo, junto al verbo principal en participio.

3. El sujeto de la oración principal pasa a ser complemento agente de la pasiva. (por María, por la banda, por Pedro, etc.)

4. Si hacemos mención en la oración del sujeto que realiza la acción (sujeto agente), este irá normalmente precedido por la preposición “by”. (by María, by the band, by Pedro, etc.)

*Tricky examples:

say – be said

Everyone says that the band is planning to go on a world tour next year.

The band is said to be planning to go on a world tour next year.

(Se dice que la banda…)

tell – be told

I have been told there is no class for two weeks.

(Me han dicho que…)

Once understood, let's move on to practice. I need you to click this link and select I would like to answer 15 ANSWERS selected from 3 PARTS.

https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/complex_tests/passive2/index.php

Is everything clear? If you have any kind of doubt, question or COMPLIMENT, leave a comment below.

PD: Miss you guys! See you in the next post!

ÓSCAR OUT.