Active voice in English examples. Active and Passive Voice in English

Our speech in Russian is quite diverse. We use different designs: simple and complex, active and passive. And we don’t even think about it. If you want to raise your English speech to the same “intuitive level”, then you should definitely use our Passive Voice table.

When you started studying tenses, you probably came across such a grammatical phenomenon as active and passive voice. Let's remember what their difference is. Most time periods can be used in two cases. If the subject of the sentence itself performs the action (I’m walking, he’s drawing, we bought, they’ll fly), then we need an active form. If something is done to the subject, he is subjected to influence (trees are planted, water is poured, I was invited, we will be taken), then we use the passive construction. That's the last one we'll talk about.

Education

Each tense uses different auxiliary verbs and predicate forms. The Passive Voice table will tell us about this.

Note that the Perfect Continuous is not used at all in the passive voice. A Continuous time has no future segment. The interrogative and negative forms are identical in all tenses.

? - Recall. verb + mean + predicate

- Subject + auxiliary. verb + not + predicate

Were you invited to the party yesterday? — Were you invited to a party yesterday?

I wasn’t invited to the party yesterday. — I wasn’t invited to the party yesterday.

Are the flowers being planted now? —Are they planting flowers now?

The trees are not being planted now. — Trees are not being planted now.

Let's compare Active and Passive

The use of different tenses fully corresponds to their counterparts in the active voice. That is why it is recommended to study all the elements of this group, and then look in detail at. Let's look at a few examples to make it easier for you to understand everything and right time recall.

As you can see, there is nothing complicated in this element of the language. First of all, determine the role of the subject: it acts or on him. Then determine the time (you can use hint words). If you need to use the passive construction, then our passive voice table is at your service. Choose the tense, auxiliary verb, predicate ending, and you're done. It is better to consolidate all this in exercises that can be completed online on our website.

When comparing the English language with the Russian language, one can notice that some grammatical features and structures have much in common and are used in the same situations. Thus, the linguistic structure of English includes some grammatical phenomena and categories, in particular, the division into voices - active and passive (they are also called active and passive voice, respectively). If the situation with the active voice is clear, then for the passive form it is necessary to give some explanations and describe why such a construction is used.

What is Passive Voice

If we define the active voice, then we can say that most sentences belong here, since the passive is used less often. - this is a situation where the subject of a sentence is an independent performer of an action. Unlike the active, the passive voice in English language- this is a grammatical construction associated primarily with the verb form and showing that the action is not performed by the subject itself; the subject undergoes the action rather than performs it. To put it simply, active and passive voice in English differ in that in the first the performer does something himself, and in the second he does not.

To clearly demonstrate how this looks in the language, it is worth giving examples of sentences that compare these two types of voice:

• · He buys meet at the market every Saturday – Every Saturday he buys meat at the market(the subject, i.e. “he”, is the independent performer of the action)
• · Meat is bought at the market every Sunday – Meat is bought at the market every Saturday(the subject, i.e. “meat,” cannot be an independent performer; the action is performed not by him, but on him)

How is Passive Voice formed?

Comparing Active and Passive Voice, you can notice the difference in the forms of the same time. The formation of the passive voice is impossible without the presence of two important grammatical factors:

1. Auxiliary verb to be, used in the form of the required tense - am, is, are, was, were, been, will be.

2. The form of the semantic verb in Passive Voice must necessarily be in , or, more simply put, be the third, if you refer to the table of irregular verbs (if the verb is regular, the ending will simply be –ed).

This order is typical for almost all types of tense forms.

Note: upon education, any Continuous forms the presence of the verb to be is also required, but here the form of the verb will be being, since otherwise it will not be possible to show the duration.

• Finally his name was called and he stepped forward - In the end, his name was called and he stepped forward
• She saw that the test had been changed and felt fear - She saw that the test was changed and felt fear
• He felt with satisfaction that he was being stared at - He noted with satisfaction that they were looking at him

Questions in Passive Voice

Questions in the passive voice are formed quite standardly. Here the rules are the same as in the active voice, where interrogative sentences: the initial position in the sentence will be taken by the auxiliary verb of the required tense (if it is not there, then to be is brought forward in the appropriate form). The subject must come next, followed by the rest of the passive form and other minor members offers. Interrogative sentences in the passive voice look like this:

• Have you already been asked to come? – Have you already been asked to come?
• Was he invited to the party yesterday? – Was he invited to a party yesterday?

Negative sentences in the passive voice

The Passive Voice with negation is also simple in its formation: the standard particle not is added to the auxiliary verb (the verb to be, if the main verb is missing), and this rule is valid for all forms of the passive:

• He will not be allowed to use this car without my permission - He will not be allowed to use this car without my permission
• The juice hasn’t been drunk yet, there is some more left - The juice hasn’t been drunk yet, there is a little left

Verbs for Passive Voice

Despite its apparent simplicity, the passive voice in English cannot be used with all verbs. As a rule, verbs in transitive or, as they are also called, causative form are awarded such a privilege.

The transitivity of an English verb is explained simply: if a word expressing an action can be given an addition, direct or indirect, then it is called transitive. Examples of such verbs are bring, eat, open, come, call and many others. If this cannot be done, then the verb is called intransitive and usually does not appear in Passive Voice (sit, fly, jump, live, etc.).

Note: in some cases the passive is formed even with intransitive verbs, but in this case it is usually accompanied by a preposition:

• At last an agreement was come at - In the end, they came to an agreement
• When a boy, he was often laughed at, but later everything changed – When he was a boy, he was often laughed at, but later everything changed
• When he was called for, he didn’t want to answer - When he was called, he didn’t want to answer

Modal Verbs and Passive Voice

The passive voice is formed even easier than with all the others. Since modal verbs can also have a passive form, then a special case There are also uses with them, but it does not pose any complexity, because here after the modal it is enough to add be and put the main verb following it in the Participle II form. On practice modal verbs in this form are used quite often, and for such use of Passive Voice examples could be as follows:

• The work must be done immediately - The work must be done immediately
• This text can not be translated without your help – This text cannot be translated without your help

Features of some temporary forms in Passive Voice

As mentioned above, the tense system provides for passive constructions in English, which are used freely and much more often than in Russian. However, it is worth noting that not all tenses can be in the passive form, and this is important to consider when using this grammatical structure in speech and writing. For this purpose, Passive Voice has a table that shows the basic Passive formulas and indicates those cases when their use is impossible.

Time table in Passive Voice:

There is a completely logical explanation for this: tenses of the category Perfect Continuous, and also the passive voice is not formed in English, since their structure contradicts the norms for the formation of the passive, because they are already supplemented by the verb to be in its original or third form. This means that it will no longer be possible to supplement the construction with anything, since the grammar prohibits this.

Prepositions for Passive Voice

Unlike Active Voice, Passive Voice is often used with prepositions, and this is typical not only for intransitive verbs. Sometimes there is a need to show who or with the help of which the action was performed. There are two standard prepositions here: by (expresses the performer, or agent) and with (expresses the instrument, which is called instrument).

Note: the statement that by is used only with animate nouns, and with with inanimate nouns is erroneous, and several situations with examples can confirm this:

• When he went for a walk to the mountains he was hit by a stone - When he went for a walk to the mountains, he was hit by a stone(the stone was not used as a tool or tool, everything happened by accident)
• The police note that the murder victim was struck with a stone – The police note that the murder victim was hit with a stone(the stone was used as a tool, using it purposefully)

Following the instructions described above will make it easy to distinguish between active and passive voice in English and will not cause inconvenience in forming the desired form.

Good afternoon Dear friends! Today I will tell you about the active voice in British speech.

Of course, it is easiest for us to perceive any information about a foreign language in comparison with our native one, Russian.

Active voice in English and simple rules It is very easy to remember how to write a sentence using this comparison.

Only in order

There are a huge number of dialects and variations in the English language, and it is difficult to imagine that the homeland of a language spoken by one and a half billion people is a small European country with an area of ​​just over 240 thousand square kilometers.

And, despite such a huge distribution of British and its varieties in each of them, the rules for constructing a sentence and using the 12 tenses of the active voice remain unchanged.

It is to this scheme that you need to bring your speech to form the active voice.

It's not difficult at all, is it? Well, let's move on. Read about how to form passive voice.

I went to London - three ways

Statements with direct word order in English can be in 12 tenses, just like in Russian, time is expressed by a verb - the predicate.

At first glance, it may seem that 12 times is a lot, but it is very easy to understand them.

The table of active voice tenses can help us with this:

On the left you see exactly the same groups of tenses as in Russian: , and (from top to bottom). Everything is very clear here.

At the top are groups of tenses that are not similar to Russian ones: simple, continuous, perfect and completely continuous.

In order to easily remember these groups and the rules for their use, it is enough to compare the example sentences given in the table.
IN general outline we can draw the following conclusion:

• Indefinite (or Simple) - simple, we use it when we talk about something that happens sometime in the past or future, or in the present with some frequency (often, always, sometimes). Pay attention to the rules for forming sentences in this tense - they are very simple: V is the initial form of the verb, Vs is the initial form + s.
• Continuous - or long-term. From the name it is clear that it lasts now, in the past or future at a certain time. It is also formed simply: the predicate will always have the ending ing, and the predicate will be preceded by to be in the required time and number.

• Perfect – perfect or . We use it when we talk about an action that took place in the past or future, BUT completed at the time of speech (in the present), at an exact time in the past or future. They say that the result of an action must be visible by a certain time. We form it using the auxiliary verb have/has and the main verb in the third form.

• Perfect Continuous is a mixture of the second and third, both in essence, in name, and even in formation. The action has already lasted for some time and continues to last at a certain point in time. It is formed: have + been + predicate with the ending ing. Where been is to be in the third form.

The simplest and most effective way to memorize and correctly use all tenses in speech is through exercises.

How to prepare for international exams and which type to choose, read.

Regular training on unique ones, will give you the opportunity to pass any test for active voice tenses with the highest score. New technology Memorizing foreign words will help you quickly increase your vocabulary and easily apply new words in speech. You will learn how to memorize 100 foreign words in an hour.

Don’t forget to subscribe to new useful materials on my blog, and you will also receive as a gift a phrasebook in three languages, English, German and French. Its main advantage is that there is Russian transcription, so even without knowing the language, you can easily master colloquial phrases.

I was with you, Natalya Glukhova, I wish you a good day!

There is an active and passive voice - Active Voice and Passive Voice, respectively. In the first option, you do an action or someone else performs it themselves, that is, an active action. For example: Masha goes to school - Masha goes to school. Petya drives a car - Petya drives a car.
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In the passive voice it would be different - Masha is taken to school. That is, an action is performed on a subject or inanimate object. I was invited - I was invited - that is, I did not invite, but I was invited.

How is Passive Voice formed?

Let's see how the Passive voice is formed according to the scheme: Creatures. + Be (am, is, are) + V3. That is, the verb to be and the third form of the verb are placed.

Examples

Affirmative sentences

-
I'm invited- action above animate object and present time Simple. In English it would be like this: I am invited.
You are invited— You are invited.
She's invited— She is invited.
He is invited— He is invited.
Important to remember that in Passive Voice only the third form is always used - V3. Or the ending –ed is added to the verb if it falls into the category of regular ones. For convenience, we have a table of irregular verbs - Irregular Verbs, which you can view here: . The third form, V3, is located in the Participle II column.
Also important that in the passive voice the pronouns do not change. For example, her invite - she is invited. That is, here it is not HER, but SHE.

Interrogative sentences

To ask a question in the passive voice, you need to use the following formula:
To be + Creatures. + V3 ?
Are the houses built every year? – Are houses built every year?
Are you invited everywhere? Are you invited everywhere?

Negative sentences

Creatures + Be + not + V3
German is (to be) not spoken (V3) everywhere. German is not spoken everywhere.

It is important to know that Future Perfect Continuous Passive, Present Perfect Continuous Passive and Past Perfect Continuous Passive does not exist - Perfect forms are used instead. And instead of Future Continuous Passive, Future Simple is used.
Table of tenses in Passive Voice
For convenience, we suggest you look at the table using tenses in the passive voice.

Lots of examples to reinforce:

Present Simple Passive

He is called every day. They call him every day.
Homework is done. Homework done
Tickets are bought. Tickets are being reserved.

Present Progressive Passive: to be (is, are, am) + Ving + V3

A new big house is being built now. A new large house is currently under construction.
I am being given a glass of milk now. Now they give me a glass of milk.

Present Perfect Passive: Have/has + been + V3

This work has just been started - The work has just begun
I have just been invited - I have just been invited

Past Simple Passive: Was/were + V3

The book was written by Alisa. – The book was written by Alice.
These apples were bought by Julia. These apples were bought by Julia.

Past Continuous Passive: Was/were + being + V3

I was being asked a question when you came home - I was asked a question just
when you came home.
The car was being washed when I arrived. The car was washed just when I arrived.

Past Perfect Passive: Had + been + V3

When we came home breakfast had been cooked already. When we got home, tomorrow was already ready.
Had the song been sung by the time she returned? Was the song written by the time she arrived?

Future Passive: Will + have/has + V3

They will be met by me. They will be met by me.
I will be thinking. I'll be surprised.

Future Perfect Passive:

By the time we return the shop will have been opened yet. - By the time we arrive, the store will already be open.
Will everything have been prepared by 7 p.m.? – Will everything be ready by 7 pm?

The active and passive voice in English are similar in meaning to Russian. They also show how the action is connected (or not connected) with its performer.

Meaning

Active and Passive Voice (English names active and passive voice) show, respectively, that a person (object) performs an action or an action occurs with a person (object) and it does not matter by whom this action is performed.

Active voice
Focus on the performer of the action

We built the well last year. - We built a well last year.

Passive voice
Focus on the action itself

The well was built last year. - The well was built last year.

Education

The active and passive tenses are formed in almost the same way. If you are fluent in the tense system of the active voice, then you have probably already noticed that if the auxiliary verb of the passive voice (to be) is placed at the right time and added to the semantic verb in the third form, the grammatical result is the passive voice.

For example:

He is drinking juice. - The juice is being drunk. (Present Continuous).

Other times are formed similarly.

Note! The whole group of times Perfect Continuous and Future time Perfects do not have passive forms.

Active and Passive Voice: Rule

Active voice used when it is important to show who (or what) is performing the action. For example, Tourists visit the UK. - Tourists come to the United Kingdom. In this proposal, the emphasis is on the fact that it is tourists who come (not businessmen, not politicians, but tourists).

Passive voice is used in cases where it does not matter who performs the action, but attention is focused on the action itself. For example, London is visited every year. - They come to London all year round . The meaning of this sentence comes down to the fact that London is a very visited city by visitors. And it doesn’t matter who comes - tourists, politicians, athletes or scientists.

Active and passive voice in English: table

If you haven’t yet learned how to translate active and passive voice in English in your head, use the summary table. It provides examples of the formation of all tenses in two voices.

Active and passive voice in English are widely used both in speech and in writing. At the same time, in communication there is a tendency to use more widely active voice, and when writing (especially in an official style) - passive.