1. The passive voice.
Active / passive voice.
In the active voice “someone does something”:
He eats apples
In the passive voice “something receives the action”:
Apples are eaten by him
When do we use it?
In English we use the passive voice to focus the attention on the thing or person affected by
the action.
“English is spoken here”
How do we form it?
The subject of the active sentence becomes the object of the passive and the object of
the active sentences becomes subject.
She buys sweets(Active)
Sweets are bought by her(Passive)
The verb is formed by the verb to be (in the correct tense) + past participle.
They buybooks > Books are bought (present simple)
She found a coin > A coin was found (past simple)
Scientist will discover a cure for cancer > A cure for cancer will be discovered (future)
In order to express who did the action we use by:
The children found a map >> A map was found by the children.
When we don’t know or we don’t want to mention the person who did the action we
do not have to use “by someone”.
“When was the castle built?”
“ A new mobile phone will be invented”