Passive Tense
By Eric (Discover English Teacher)
We are all trapped at home; our freedoms of movement and association have been severely – and temporarily, and necessarily – curtailed. We are living an almost entirely passive life. So what better grammar point to do a little expo of than the passive form?
The passive form is used when we are more interested in what happened than who actually did it and it is used all the time; and to be honest, we often don’t even know we’re using it. At first it seems completely weird and counter-intuitive to everyone. But it’s a fun way to switch things up a little and to talk about who your favourite film was directed by.
It is formed by taking the object of a sentence and, with the assistance of ‘be + Past participle’, making that object the focus, the new subject – so that in a passive sentence we’re looking more closely at the target of an action.
I was lucky enough to grow up with a younger sister and I find this a very useful way to explain the passive because, as anyone who has younger siblings knows, they’re forever getting you into trouble. My sister was always running to our mother saying. for example:
“Eric broke the window.” Perhaps this is true (I’m not confessing ), and our mum needs to know so that she can get a glazier in. But told like this, I will get into a lot of trouble.
In this situation, the passive is much, much better.
The object is the window, so we place that at the start of the sentence and make it the subject.
The window …
The action is break and in the passive this if formed by using ‘be + past participle’
Since the past participle cannot change form, the timing of the action is communicated in ‘be’
In this case broke – PAST SIMPLE – so we say, ‘was broken’
The window was broken
If we want to, we can tell people who did the action by adding ‘by <whoever did the action>’ at the end
The window was broken by Eric.
But in this case, I really don’t want my mum to know who broke the window, so I hope my sister leaves it off.
The window was broken.
There it is: a passive sentence that communicates the important information without getting me into trouble.
It’s important to remember that because the Past Participle cannot change form we change ‘be’ to express the timing.
Eric is eating my birthday cake.
My birthday cake is being eaten <by Eric>.
Eric has stolen my barbie doll.
My barbie doll has been stolen <by Eric>.
Using examples of sibling power struggles is (I think) an effective way to explain the passive form, but now that you’ve seen it you will see it everywhere. It is used in newspapers and reporting all the time – if you read a few newspaper articles after this, I’m sure you will see many examples.
We’ve all been forced to stay home, but we can continue to learn.