2. Passive voice: uses
● To give more importance to the action than who
actually did it
"A mistake was made"
● When we don´t know who did the action (or we
don´t want to say it)
"A cat has been abandoned"
● Note: Passive voice is not used with intransitive
verbs (go, lie, etc)
3. Gramatical rule and structure
● Use the auxiliar verb "to be" and the past
participle of the verb
● Subject + auxiliar verb + past participle
"The book is written for his mother"
"The castle was built in 1774"
4. Passive sentences: form
● Affirmative: The cake is made of flour
● Negative: The cake isn't made of flour
● Interrogative: Is the cake made of flour?
ACTIVE PASIVE
See/sees As/is/are seen
saw Was/were seen
Had/have saw Had/have been seen
5. Tenses and form
TENSE ACTIVE PASIVE
Present simple See/sees Am/is/are seen
Past simple see Was/were seen
Present continuous Am/is/are seeing As/is/are being seen
Past continuous Was/were seeing Was/were being seen
Present perferct Have/has seen Have/ has been seen
Past perfect Had seen Had been seen
6. Transformation
● Search for the object and convert it into subject
● Change the main verb to participle
● Follow the structure: conjugated “to be” + verb
participle
He (subject) built (verb) the house (object)
The house [subject (converted object)] was built
(passive structure) by him
7. Passive voice examples - Tenses
ACTIVE VOICE PASSIVE VOICE
The cat is tasting the food The food is being tested
by the cat
Present continuous
I wrote this poem This poem was writen by
me
Past simple
They were painting the
garage at evening
The garage was being
painted at evening
Past continuous
They have produced one
hundred albums
One hunderd albums
have been produced
Present perfect
They make cookies in the
kitchen
Cookies are made in the
kitchen
Present simple
I will start tomorrow It will be started tomorrow Future simple
They might found some
Some extra coins might
Modal verbs
extra coins
be found
8. Sentences transformation examples
● Active: She sing a song every day
Passive: A song is sung every day
● A: They fixed their computers last week
P: Their computers were fixed last week
● A: I ate the last cookie
P: The last cookie was eaten
● A: We can get the tickets!
P: The tickets can be gotten!
● A: He is going to buy a car
P: A car is going to be bought
