Convert Active Voice to Passive Voice in English

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hi everybody welcome back to ask Alisha

the weekly series where you ask me

questions and I answer them

maybe first question this week comes

from Grisha hi Grisha Grisha says hi

Alicia I want to ask about the usage of

the phrase something is or was being for

example my house is being robbed by

somebody apparently this means the house

is being robbed at the moment but why

can’t we say it like my house is robbing

now by somebody what’s the difference

okay so this is because that is being or

was being pattern is a passive form so

we use the passive voice when we don’t

know the person or the thing doing an

action or when that person or thing is

not important so in this case in your

example sentence my house is being

robbed by someone we don’t know exactly

who the person is so that’s why we use

by someone we don’t know exactly that

person the reason that we cannot say my

house is robbing is because the grammar

of the sentence changes there here my

house becomes the actor in the situation

my house is robbing that means my house

in this case is stealing something and

that’s not possible unless your house

has like legs and can move which is not

realistic so my house is robbing doesn’t

make any sense a house cannot steal

anything so the passive form my house is

being robbed by someone shows that the

house is like the thing that’s receiving

the action if however you do want to use

the active voice you can change it so

that the robber is the subject of the

sentence

for example someone is robbing my house

in that case this unknown person someone

is the subject robbing is our verb in

the progressive tense and we see that

that means it’s happening now and the

object of the verb is my house

so we can use an active sentence to

express the same thing or

if we want to focus on the house we can

use the passive voice so my house is

being robbed by someone so this is a

quick introduction to one pattern that

uses passive voice I hope that it was

helpful for you thanks very much for the

question okay let’s move along to your

next question next question comes from

Mellie

kurosu hi Mellie Mellie says hi Alicia

can you explain leverage I often

encounter it as a verb in documentation

about IT thanks ah yeah leverage gets

used in business a lot so leverage as a

verb means to make use of or to take

advantage of something this can often

have a negative nuance which means like

to exploit something so to exploit means

to use someone else usually to use

something or to use another person for

your own gain usually without caring

about that person very much so

leverage can kind of have this feel

sometimes some examples we need to

leverage our connections to make this

deal successful our team leverage the

bad news about our competitor to create

positive publicity for our company so

here leverage means make use of

something else or take advantage of

something else usually for your own gain

so in IT stuff perhaps it just means

make use of something but oftentimes

when you’re talking about people or your

connections it can mean like exploits

like you’re just trying to get something

from people which is generally seen as a

negative thing so keep an eye out for

this leverage as a verb means to take

advantage of something okay so I hope

that that helps answer your question

thank you very much for sending it along

let’s move along to your next question

next question comes from Karina

hi again crema Karima says hi Alicia

could you please tell me the difference

in meaning between hurt and get hurt and

how does get modify the verb okay

first about using get to modify verbs

think of get has become so get means

become hear like become hurt but we

don’t say become hurt it sounds way too

formal way too polite so get here

become but we use get hurt when we maybe

don’t want to focus so much on exactly

the reason we received an injury or

maybe it’s not known or we want to just

focus on the action like the injury

itself we don’t want to focus on the

cause of that I got hurt at basketball

practice yesterday my friend got hurt at

work so we use hurt when the person or

the thing that causes the injury is

quite clear and we want to communicate

that for some reason some examples of

that I hurt my arm snowboarding last

year that’s true a kid hurt my friend

when he kicked her that’s also true

so in these example sentences the cause

of the injury is clear when we use get

hurt or got hurt maybe we want to focus

on like the location where the injury

happened or maybe like the time period

for example maybe we don’t want to focus

on the cause so much so I hope that this

helps you understand the differences

between hurt and get hurt thanks very

much for the question okay let’s move

along to your next question next

question comes from Lyon Hagen lion lion

says hi Alicia my question is when I

want to use conjunctions when should I

only use a comma for example I like

cooking but I don’t like washing dishes

afterward when should I use both a comma

and a semicolon

for example gold mining is a very

profitable industry however there are

certain risks involved oh good yeah nice

question so when you’re using a simple

coordinating conjunction like an butt or

four so when you’re using one of those

to connect independent clauses just as

you’ve done just use a comma before your

coordinating conjunction so in your

example sentence that was perfect so

when you’re using an adverb as a

conjunction like in your example however

also like moreover therefore those kinds

of words when you’re using that to

connect two independent clauses use a

semicolon and a comma so you can call

these conjunctive adverbs so we’re using

the adverb like to connect these two

independent clauses so just as you did

in your example

use a semicolon before your conjunctive

adverb and a comma after it some more

examples we plan to leave town today

semicolon however comma the weather

forced us to change our plans I’ve

decided to move to a new city semicolon

therefore comma I’m quitting my job so I

hope that this helps you when you’re

using these adverbs as conjunctions you

can follow this rule otherwise just

follow the rule for simple independent

clauses join with a coordinating

conjunction also I made a video about

comma uses that you can find on the

channel as well so I hope that that

gives you some more information thanks

very much for this question ok let’s

move along to your next question next

question comes from Andre hi Andre

Andre says hi Alicia update and upgrade

what is the difference

ok yeah update means to make a small

change to an existing thing so for this

answer let’s imagine we’re talking about

a software a piece of like antivirus

software so when you update your

antivirus software you receive new

information about that so you download

an update there’s something new there’s

some kind of small change that you make

to the existing software so your

software doesn’t change like your your

the name of your software it does not

change but you get something new so

you’ve updated it it’s like a little

refresh for what you have when you

upgrade however it’s like you level up

so if you imagine you’re using like

antivirus software C and one day you

find out o antivirus software B is

really great I have to pay money but it

looks good so you buy the software you

can say I upgraded to antivirus software

B so I got an upgrade or I purchased an

upgrade so that means you got a totally

new software so in this case you did not

update to software B you upgraded to

software be so updates are for like

small pieces of information that sort of

refresh something that’s existing

upgrade means you level up something so

some other situations where we use this

are like Airlines for example so we say

like I was upgraded to business

class or I was upgraded to first class

or I upgraded to first class we do not

use update there another example is when

you’re sharing scheduling information

with your coworkers

so we’ll share like an update a quick

update about the schedule or please

share updates about the schedule with me

or I have a small update for you we do

not use upgrade in this situation so

when you’re kind of refreshing existing

information you can use update when

you’re getting something totally new

like another level you can use upgrade

so I hope that that helps you understand

the difference thanks very much for this

question

alright that’s everything that I have

for this week thank you as always for

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