This document discusses the passive voice and how to identify and form passive sentences. It notes that the passive voice is used when the agent is unknown, obvious, or unimportant. It provides examples of changing active sentences to passive by using "be" plus the past participle. The document also discusses how verbs with two objects, like indirect and direct objects, are changed to passive sentences.

1. THE PASSIVE VOICE UNIT 5

2. IMPORTANT ASPECTS Structure: be + past participle. What do we use it for? When the agent (who or what causes the action) is obvious, unknown or unimportant. e.g. A lot of money was stolen in the robbery. When we want to say what happens to the subject. e.g. His father was killed in the war. When we want to say who does or what causes the action, we use by + noun. e.g. The English Channel was crossed first by Louis Bleirot .

3. Turning active sentences into passive Active: They built this house in 1486. Passive: This house was built in 1486. Careful! Intransitive verbs do not take passive structures, for instance die, arrive, happen, exist, sleep, have, come, occur, fit, lack, live, etc. Check your Grammar Reference and English Grammar in Use to see how the verbs change from active to passive.

4. VERBS WITH TWO OBJECTS In active sentences you can find two possible structures: A Verb + indirect object + direct object e.g. She gave her sister the car . B Verb + direct obj + preposition + indirect obj e.g. She gave the car to her sister . The passive sentence will be as follows: A Her sister was given the car.(IO=S) B The car was given to her sister. (DO=S)