Active and Passive Verb Forms Basic English Grammar

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everybody welcome back to our weekly

live stream my name is Alisha and today

we’re going to talk about the active

voice and the passive voice in English

this is a very common question I get

from you so we’re going to discuss what

these two things are and how to choose

when to use them so please as you join

send us a message in the chat and make

sure to like and share the video so

other learners can find today’s lesson

we’ll begin in about two minutes scraped

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share the video and get started with

today’s lesson for today’s lesson I’ve

prepared it as like a grammar lesson a

little bit to introduce these two voices

and I hope that you in the chat can send

lots of examples of active and passive

voice so we can check out your sentences

and we can help each other and make

fixes and so on too so please send lots

of your examples in the chat today and

we can practice together alright I will

share and we will begin today’s lesson

with the active voice the active voice

so first I want to explain what active

voice is used to do why do we need the

active voice we’ll begin here with this

explanation a long explanation I’m

afraid but in active voice when we use

the active voice what’s called active

voice the focus of your sentence the

focus of your statement is the person or

the thing doing the action so the person

in this case like me for example or the

thing like a marker or a whiteboard or a

camera that’s the focus of the sentence

so the focus is the person or the thing

doing the action so we can understand

that person or that thing as the actor

the actor so yes the word actor in

English means like movie star someone

who is really

in the movies but actor here actor in

this case for today’s lesson means the

person or the thing that is doing

something that is the actor so the actor

the actor is the subject of our sentence

so that’s the person or the thing that

is doing something they’re doing

something this is a key difference a key

point for today’s lesson so we use

active voice a lot in English I know in

some languages they prefer to speak with

passive voice which we’ll talk about in

a moment but in English we like to use

the active voice a lot in English using

the active sounds confident it sounds

like we know all the information it

sounds like we are prepared to share

everything we are not hiding anything so

active voice is preferred in a lot of

different cases in English I’ll talk

about some other situations later let’s

look at some examples and for you who

are watching I’ll write this down here

in the chat in the chat whether you’re

watching live or not live send oops

sorry send and active sorry active voice

send an active voice sentence so

practice writing these two

and if you can think about how you might

change it to passive later so in the

chat send an active voice sentence I’ll

share a few examples to get you started

so first I finished my report

I finished my report so in this sentence

this isn’t these are all active voice

sentences in this sentence who is the

actor I in this case my subject I so the

person doing something is me I the

action is finished so this is a past

tense sentence I finished what did I

finish my report

I finished my report so we know the

person who did the action me we know the

action and we know like the thing that

received the action so my report is the

thing that was finished that was passive

we’ll get to that in a moment so I

finished my report very basic sentence

some examples are coming in good someone

sent the passive version of this let’s

use active voice for an hour active

voice for now okay good

another one I joined a party yesterday

great nice example of an active sentence

I’ve watched your videos a lot very nice

okay I study on YouTube great nice

examples in the YouTube chat okay on

Facebook let’s see I’m watching Alicia

perfect nice active sentence I am

watching your lectures as Indian very

nice someone says I don’t know if that’s

an example or just a comment okay good I

did my laundry on YouTube perfect I

finished my training good I run in the

street good okay good

nice examples so this is an active

sentence some of you are sending passive

voice sentences yes they are correct but

they are passive will practice passive

more later so let’s try another one

let’s change the actor so here my

subject was me so I finished my

now let’s change it I erased this sorry

then that okay the next example that man

stole my bag that man stole my bag so

here my actor is that man over there

I don’t know him so I say that man that

guy maybe to that dude hey that guy

stole my bag or that man stole my bag so

my actor is that man specifically

somewhere over there there’s nobody

there okay so the action stole stole

stole is the past tense of steal steal

so to steal is to take something that is

not yours so don’t do this so that man

stole what did he steal my bag so my bag

is receiving this action stealing my bag

what’s the thing that was stolen we’ll

talk about passive in a moment

someone says very bad man he is indeed

okay so this is another active voice

sentence we know the person doing the

action

we know the actor that man we know the

action here and we know what received

the action my bag here okay

other examples are coming in I’m

programming a web app maybe Dave hi uh

Alicia is still okay there’s some very

interesting examples you guys are

sending um that girl stole my heart oh

no a great example Daniel very nice lots

of people are saying that woman stole my

heart why are there so many of those

examples that’s kind of funny they’re

like really I see like seven on screen

right now the same example sentence

that’s pretty funny okay someone says

that person bothers me good good good

okay that woman stole my heart what with

all these examples the same example

that’s funny I hope that not true for

everybody but that’s funny that many of

you had the same example okay the dog is

biting me oh no is that true from Kay on

Facebook great great okay let’s go to

the last example of n all right my

coworker let’s change the actor again my

coworker is eating my lunch

sadface my coworker is eating my lunch

sad face this is my nice sad drawing hmm

my coworker is eating my lunch

so here the actor is my coworker

what’s a co-worker a co-worker is your

colleague the person you work with the

person you share an office with so my

coworker

it’s my subject my coworker what’s the

action is eating my coworker is eating

so this is happening now my coworker is

eating I’m using the progressive form

what is my co-worker eating my lunch

oh no so sad face my coworker is eating

my lunch so I know the actor I know the

action happening now and I know the

thing that received the action so again

co-worker is the person you work with

the person you share in office with your

team member 13 member so these are

active voice sentences so when we want

the actor to be the focus we know the

actor we can share that information we

use active voice in English we like to

use the active voice a lot because it

sounds very clear in English we like to

say everything clearly we usually don’t

try to hide anything unless there’s

something strange in the situation we’ll

talk about that in a moment

great some more examples are coming in

my coworker is punching my teeth

what’s grammatically correct but a very

interesting situation I cannot imagine

on Facebook a person stole everything

from the store whoa okay math Matea says

my co-worker is copying my project whoa

my coworker is doing my work yeah when

YouTube says you have very bad coworkers

you guys are funny examples today that’s

nice

someone else said my dog is eating my

cat you guys have very very interesting

examples very interesting okay this is

very interesting

great you guys have nice examples

everybody has nice examples active voice

sounds good so we’re going to go to

passive voice in part two of today’s

lesson and then we will talk about how

to choose so when to use these for now

let’s take a short break for today’s

lesson I thought it would be good I want

to introduce these two PDFs these are

both I talked about the business one

from time to time this one is a school

one ooh thanks for the zoom this one is

a school PDF

this has phrases for class phrases for

class here on the back the business one

has phrases for a business meeting I

thought these two would be very nice to

pair with this lesson today because

these are both situations in which

choosing between active and passive can

help you sound like making the correct

choice between active and passive can

help you to sound more confident or more

sure about what you want to say so if

you would like to download these they

are free you can find them from the link

below the video on youtube or above the

video on Facebook so these are the

business and school PDFs but there are

lots of others I’ll show you maybe a

couple more

leader all right great with that let’s

continue then to passive voice now we

talked about active voice if you missed

it don’t worry this lesson is being

recorded let’s talk about passive now

what is passive if you’re just joining

to you don’t forget to like and share

the video so others can find today’s

lesson okay so passive now let’s discuss

passive I will go over here so passive

voice in passive voice then different

from active voice the person or thing

receiving the action is the focus so in

active voice the person doing the action

the actor was the focus of our sentence

in this case with passive however the

thing or the person receiving some

action is our focus so this is long

there’s a lot of information here but

this is a key to understanding passive

voice when we should use it passive

voice is used when we do not know the

person or thing doing the action so I

don’t know who did something I see the

result or I know the result so I can

describe that with passive voice I don’t

know who did it but I know something

happened I use passive voice to express

that

so that’s one that’s one situation when

we don’t know the person or the thing

doing the action second when the person

or the thing doing the action is not

important not important so maybe I know

the person or the thing who did

something but it’s not important to my

conversation now what’s important is the

result I want to focus on the results

this is the second case where we use

passive voice a lot finally or a third

reason when we want to emphasize the

thing receiving the action so emphasized

means to make something stronger like we

want the thing receiving the action to

have like stronger meaning in our

sentence there are a lot of reasons we

might want to do this I will talk about

this point more in part three of today’s

lesson so these are the three cases or

three kind of general guides for when to

use the passive okay so to make the

passive form to make a passive statement

we use the verb to be to be and we

change the verb to be to match the tenth

of our sentence so we don’t change our

verb to past tense we change to be so we

use was for example and then we use the

past participle form of the verb with

was with was in cases like these so I’ll

show you a few different examples of how

we can make the passive with a couple of

like kind of changed sentences from the

first part of our lesson so first one in

the beginning of today’s lesson we

talked about this one I finished sorry

sorry thank you we’ve talked about this

sentence I finished my report I finished

my report

to make this sentence passive then we

use my report was finished my report was

finished hmm so here there’s no

information about the actor so who

finished my report we don’t know it’s

not important for some reason my

emphasis in this sentence is just my

report was finished so here my subject

is my report so this is the thing

receiving the action so to express that

I use my report was Mike to beaver and

then past participle finished my report

was finished my report was finished a

slightly more advanced point some of you

have asked about this we sometimes use

get instead of B in sentences like these

so for example my report got finished

when you use the verb get here it

communicates something unexpected so

like a surprise and so we can use get in

these passive sentences for example my

report got finished it sounds like I’m

surprised I’m not I don’t expect my

report was finished like that’s a

surprise to me to communicate that I say

my report got finished so what happened

my report got finished what so that

sounds like something kind of surprising

ok let’s continue to the next one so

let’s change our first one to passive us

lots of you in the chat already sent

this answer but that man stole my bag

was our active voice sentence but to

make this passive my bag was stolen my

bag was stolen so again who is the actor

here we don’t know in this case or it’s

not important I use to be

in the past was was this is something

that is finished it’s done stolen is the

past participle form of steel steel so

an active voice we used simple past

tense that man stole my bag that man

stole my bag to make it a passive

sentence we use was stolen

past participle form of the verb steal

my bag was stolen so in this case I

don’t know who stole my bag or maybe for

some reason it’s not important who stole

my bag so you might use this sentence if

you’re at a coffee shop and maybe you

realize your bag is gone you could say

well my bag was stolen this is another

case this is a great example of a case

where you can use got my bag got stolen

very unexpected so my bag got stolen we

can use it here okay

sorry I haven’t checked the chat in a

while someone says is it correct if I

say my report was done I guess you could

but it sounds a little not quite so

clear this is getting into a little bit

of the differences between like a status

word done and an action word done so I

would say my report was finished just to

be a little more clear okay my little

dog was stolen oh dear oh dear okay uh

other examples why not my bag was stolen

by that man says Humvee air you can use

that yeah my bag was stolen by that man

that’s fine it’s grammatically correct

so I think I saw a couple of you sending

sentences that use by someone someone

someone so my report was finished by me

yeah sure you can use that if if you

want to include the actor that’s fine

you can if you don’t know the actor this

is how you might say it so yes it’s

correct it’s fine to do that if you want

but there are some situations where you

just don’t know the actor or you

to hide the actor or something so yes it

is fine to do that my house was built in

one year very very nice very nice my

wallet was stolen good good

is it okay to use to past tense in one

sentence yes that’s fine my phone was

stolen good good good

uh my car okay okay lots of people

having things stolen okay let’s move on

to the last example though my lunch is

being eaten my lunch is being eaten so

here we have the passive form of this my

coworker is eating my lunch

sentence my coworker is eating my lunch

sentence here my lunch is being eaten so

yes we can say my lunch is being eaten

by my coworker you can say that but in

some cases we don’t want to maybe our

coworker can hear us like if like Eric

is eating my lunch

I just sorry Eric we don’t want to say

like my lunch is being eaten by Eric

because Eric might hear me and realize I

can see him sorry arctas so we might not

choose we might choose not to use by

someone here but let’s break this down

my lunch my lunch is our focus here so

this is our subject yeah my lunch is

being is being so I have to use the be

verb here in this case we’re using the

progressive form just as we did over

here we’re using the progressive eating

here when we make it passive though we

need to change our beaver my lunch is

being this means happening now is being

and eaten is my past participle verb the

past participle of the verb eat my lunch

is being eaten

sadly so my lunch is being eaten by my

coworker my lunch is being eaten by Eric

whatever lots of people are having

things stolen into chat okay so stolen

is good and I think so again if you want

to hide the actor or you do not know the

actor you can use passive to do that

some other examples that are not about

having things stolen my console is being

fixed

nice one Fernando okay

[Music]

some trees are being planted says C

Homme very nice my chicken was stolen

but what’s interesting lots of things

being stolen my homework is being

dropped oh no like physically dropped

your homework okay other examples other

examples what means focus focus focus

means the thing we want to put our

attention on so we need to that’s like

the most important thing in the sentence

so is the person or thing receiving the

action that’s the focus of our sentence

my book was torn my lunch was stolen

okay lots of things being stolen let’s

take one more short break and then we’ll

talk about how to choose how do you

choose active voice or passive voice

I’ve given you many hints but we’ll talk

more about this so I want to share a

couple more of these PDFs that I think

could match with today’s lesson this is

the travel this is travel to the USA one

yes but mm-hmm

on the back again there is hard to see

there’s this question part should I

would run around there but I I’ll knock

something over

oh yes this question part asking

questions so these are like answers a

lot of answers to common travel

questions yes but you might use or you

might hear rather passive and active

sentences to respond to so if you’re

traveling maybe this is another good one

to pick up this is the travel PDF and

then I showed you the business and the

school ones earlier there are a couple

more just some things to think about

shopping as well there are lots of verb

on the back of this shopping one too but

um so you can practice your active and

passive sentences with those all right

let’s go on to the last part of today’s

lesson then how to choose how to choose

so how do we choose how do we decide

should I use active voice should I use

passive voice I don’t know

so first what is your focus

think about your sentence what is your

focus do you want it so again focus the

most important part of your sentence

what’s the most important thing in your

sentence is it the person or the thing

acting is it the person doing some

action is that your focus is that the

most important thing probably you should

choose the active voice probably active

voice or is your focus is the most

important thing the person or the thing

receiving the action so something

happened to something else in that case

maybe you should use the passive voice

or maybe do do you know the actor so if

you if you don’t know the actor or if

you want to hide the actor you can use

passive so hide hide again means like to

make something secret like you don’t

want to share something to hide the

actor so why would you want to hide the

actor this is something I haven’t talked

about today can we move down just a

little bit so I’ll show you a couple

examples of situations where you may

want to hide the person acting this is

usually because you did something bad or

someone is in trouble

for example

your computer was broken your computer

was broken so you leave your house and

you come back and you leave your office

and you come back and someone says your

computer was broken so here this is

passive voice your computer is our focus

yeah was broken so broken is the past

participle form of the verb break your

computer was broken you might think what

why who broke my computer what happened

this is a situation where there’s some

trouble

so you want to hide the actor maybe the

speaker broke the computer and doesn’t

want to explain you use passive voice

but please keep in mind like in this

case you’re going to get lots of

questions like who broke the computer

what happened so expect follow-up

passive voice is not like a way to keep

you safe

if you get in trouble it’s a way to try

to hide sometimes if you get in trouble

but it will not keep you safe okay

hey Monday blue thanks for joining okay

second example the customer was taken

care of the customer was taken care of

so what’s this this is not a situation

where there’s trouble necessarily maybe

there’s not trouble this is an example

of like a company situation so in many

organizations companies whatever big

groups of people working together in

these cases sometimes it’s not important

to say which employee did something we

don’t need to say specifically Alicia

did this Eric did that Devin did that we

don’t say specifically who but we need

to know that something happened this is

another case where we might use passive

so the customer was taken care of so to

take care of something means like to do

what is necessary or to help someone

this case so here who took care of the

customer it’s not important

maybe Alicia did it maybe Devon did it

maybe Eric did it but we don’t need to

know that the most important thing in

this message is the customer was helped

the customer was taken care of so our

focus is the customer so this is an

example where it’s not so important

maybe to say who did it but we want to

focus on the action being completed so

this is a simple guide to how to choose

between active and passive generally if

you in English if you know the actor

it’s better to say it in many cases

there are also times when passive will

sound a little bit more polite like in a

job interview setting for example what

time will the interview be held it’s

like hmm I don’t know who’s going to

hold the interview so I use passive

voice to ask my question so there are a

couple of situations like that where you

don’t know the person or you’re not sure

about the actor so you can use passive

voice to get around that so we have to

someone shouted in all caps can I say my

computer is broken instead of was broken

yes you can but the nuance of your

sentence changes my computer is broken

is a status as a condition my computer

is broken if you want to say my computer

was broken

sounds like someone did it someone did

that so is broken we don’t have that

feeling okay I have to finish because

I’m late as usual

let’s end there so thank you very much

to everyone who joined us next week we

are going to be back yeah we’re gonna

talk about this how to give your opinion

and connect your ideas so lots of you

well some of you have asked recently

about how to make like longer sentences

and like putting your ideas together so

I’m gonna talk about and then and so on

and after that like how to connect your

ideas and show

your ideas share your opinions a bit

more smoothly so please join us next

week July 25th Wednesday 10:00 p.m.

Eastern Standard Time that is New York

City time please google it to find your

local time if you don’t know what time

that is if you missed this lesson yes it

will be recorded it will be available on

YouTube and Facebook very soon if you’re

watching on Instagram please check the

full video on YouTube or Facebook so

we’ll finish there thank you very much

to everybody who joined and thank you

for your very funny example sentences

don’t forget to grab download your free

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print out some new ones so check out all

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join us next week thanks for liking and

sharing the video enjoy the rest of your

week enjoy your weekend and I will see

you again soon bye bye