The Passive Voice The passive is used in English when: The subject is unknown : The house was built in 1678 The subject is understood: My car is being repaired To replace indefinite subjects (someone, people, they...) English is spoken here To give more importance to the action (for whatever reason) than to the person who performed the action. Messi scored the goal The goal was scored by Messi How do we form the passive? Active: SUBJECT + VERB + DIRECT/INDIRECT OBJECT+ COMPLEMENTS. They are shooting a film in Italy Passive: DIRECT/INDIRECT OBJECT+ BE (conjugated, page 81 WB)+PAST PARTICIPLE + (by+agent – if necessary) + COMPLEMENTS. A film is being shot in Italy What happens when we have two objects (direct and indirect)? They gave me a watch a) A watch was given to me b) *I was given a watch They sold tickets to members for $30. a) Tickets were sold to members for $30 b) *Members were sold tickets for $30 TENSE Active Passive Simple Present writes is/are written Simple Past wrote was/ were written has / have written has/have been written will write will be written is/are going to write is /are going to be wtitten can write can be written Present Perfect Future Modal verbs Present Progressive Past Progressive Past Perfect Is/are writing is/are being written was / were writing was / were being written had written had been written
