Este documento son unos apuntes explicando la voz pasiva en Inglés, Summaries of English

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Passive Voice

Active voice: The subject "performs" or "does" the action

Peter eats an apple (Peter is the subject) (An apple is the object)

Passive voice: The subject "receives" or "suffers" the action.

An apple is eaten by Peter (An apple is the subject) (By Peter is the agent)

How to change an active sentence into a passive one

1. The object becomes the subject
2. We use the same tense of the verb "to be"
3. The main verb turns into a past participle
4. The subject becomes the agent preceded by the preposition "by" but with "somebody, someone, people, them" the agent may not be mentioned or it is written between brackets.

Active Passive

Present Simple I write a book A book is written by me

Present Continuous I am writing a book A book is being written by me

Present Perfect I have written a book A book has been written by me.

Past Perfect I had written a book A book had been written by me.

Past Simple I wrote a book A book was written by me

Past Continuous

I was writing a book A book was being written by me

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

I will write a book A book will be written by me I can write a book A book can be written by me I must write a book A book must be written by me

"Going to, have to…"

I am going to write a book A book is going to be written by me. I have to write a book A book has to be written by me.

If the active sentence is negative or interrogative we keep these characteristics in the passive voice.

They don´t eat apples Apples are not eaten (by them)

Did Mary paint the kitchen? Was the kitchen painted by Mary?

Verbs with two objects in the passive

Some verbs can have 2 objects and they can make two passive sentences.

Active: Someone gave Jimmy the money Someone gave the money to Jimmy.

Passive: The money was given to Jimmy / Jimmy was given the money.