hi everybody welcome back to our weekly
live stream my name is alicia and today
we're going to talk about active voice
and passive voice in english today will
be a good grammar lesson a good chance
to review some things i'm going to talk
about the differences between active
voice and passive voice i'm going to
share with you how to change a really
really simple way i hope
that you can change from active voice to
passive voice and then i'm going to talk
about when you should use these so a lot
of people have asked me questions about
these two grammar points so today i hope
will be a good lesson for everybody
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you're watching on youtube or above the
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are a few of them there's a big variety
of topics that you can choose from
so take a look whatever you think seems
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link
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hey leah hello elton i see some people
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yeah all right so i'll recap today's
topic is active voice versus passive
voice active voice versus passive voice
is the graphic there we go cool okay now
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so
again three points to today's lesson i'm
going to share the video and then i am
going to begin so as we go through
today's lesson please feel free to send
your questions your example sentences in
the chat and i will try to check in real
time i will try to check everything live
if i miss yours i'm very sorry
but i hope that i can get to as many as
possible okay
share the video and off we go
alrighty so let's get started with the
difference between active and passive
let's start over here first what is
active voice what is passive voice let's
talk about what these topics what these
things even are i'm going to slow down a
little bit too so
first active voice what is active voice
so active voice is something it's like a
way of speaking or a way of writing you
can think of it kind of like a style
that you use
so in active voice sentences
the focus of the sentence is the person
or the thing
doing the action we want to focus on
like the person doing something that's
our focus for the sentence or the thing
that is doing something
so
the actor so in this case actor does not
mean like famous person in a movie it
means the person or the thing doing the
action
that is the subject of the sentence so
maybe you remember uh in english word
order we have subject verb object so
subject verb object is the the order in
which the parts of the sentence are
organized so let's take a look at a
couple of basic examples of this
active voice sentences are for example i
wrote an email so very simple sentence
who wrote the email i did i am the actor
i'm the person doing something
my verb is wrote past tense of right and
then my object is an email i wrote an
email this is a simple active voice
sentence
second example here
he called some friends he called some
friends so again in this case my focus
is the person doing the activity the
actor in this sentence
my verb here is called past tense of
call so to call means like to call
someone on the phone
and then some friends some friends so
these are the things email and friends
these are the things that are like
receiving the action yeah so they are
affected by the action here done by the
subject so this is active voice so
active voice in english looks like this
let's compare this then to passive voice
passive voice so what is passive voice
so passive voice is different from
active voice
in that in passive voice sentences
the focus is the person or the thing
receiving the action the person are the
thing receiving the action so in these
sentences our focus is the person or the
thing doing the action
in passive voice sentences we want to
focus on the thing receiving the action
so the person or the thing receiving the
action is the subject so we can kind of
imagine a little bit these sentences are
kind of uh the opposite in some ways
okay so some examples then i've changed
these sentences these active voice
sentences into passive voice sentences
so here an email was written this is a
passive voice sentence an email was
written so we don't know or we don't
care about the person who did it
we want to focus on the results here an
email was written an email was written
second
some friends were called some friends
were called so again we don't know who
did the action we don't want to focus on
that we want to focus on like the result
or we want to focus uh on the thing that
received the action
so how do we make passive voice
to make a passive voice expression you
can use this is a basic pattern i'm
going to show you how to change between
the two uh in part two of today's lesson
so here to make a passive voice
expression
use your subject
plus the verb to be plus the past
participle form of a verb
so subject in this case is an email in
this example sentence
my be verb is was because i'm talking
about a past situation
and the past participle form of right is
written written so an email was written
an email was written
the other example here this is a plural
subject so plural subject means there's
more than one of something it's plural
so
some friends my subject
b
here i'm using were were because plural
subject some friends and then call
becomes called in the past participle
verb form so this is the difference
between active voice and passive voice
in terms of grammar in terms of the uh
what we want to communicate so some
examples i saw some examples coming in
andrew says the decorations for the
party were created yes by alicia so if
you want to you can attach
the person the actor at the end of the
sentence don't have to sick eraser says
the slipper was nibbled good so maybe
like your dog or like your cat or
somebody uh nibbled on a slipper that's
funny uh some examples on facebook
someone says there's a problem in
focusing i don't know uh i don't see any
examples on facebook yet so come on
facebook i i don't see anything lots of
people saying hello
uh some active sentences bori says she
does her homework every night so we're
going to practice in part two today how
to change your active voice sentence
into a passive sentence so i hope you
can practice that i don't see much uh in
terms of example sentence you're good i
don't see much in terms of example
sentences
alrighty cool so
uh please get ready to practice then
changing active to passive in part two
of today's lesson we'll take a quick
break and then we'll continue on to that
so i hope that part two is very helpful
for many people today all right i showed
you this a little bit earlier i showed
you at the beginning of today's lesson
uh the three things that you can find
from the link below the video if you're
watching on youtube or above the video
if you're watching on facebook
these are free pdfs oh
okay i'll do this so uh these are for
free you can find these from the link
below the video if you're watching on
youtube or above the video if you are
watching on facebook uh oops this one's
backwards sorry uh this is also
backwards i have picked them up
backwards sorry i picked them up
backwards here's another one uh cooking
in english is another topic
you can find all of these from the link
below the video if you're watching on
youtube or above the video if you're
watching on facebook so take a look
there are lots of different topics you
can choose from here
you can find something print it out put
it on your phone uh to practice with
throughout the week so have a look if
you're watching on instagram check it
out on youtube or facebook and sorry i
cannot see your comments live alrighty
let's continue to
part two of today's lesson uh someone
says i shared alicia's live stream with
my sister woohoo thanks for sharing yeah
if you haven't already do please make
sure to like and share this video so
that other people can find today's
lesson i have shared it
someone else has just shared it thank
you so let's get to part two part two of
today's lesson if you're just joining um
today's topic is active voice versus
passive voice
now next i'm going to
share i hope some something that's
helpful many of you have asked me about
this
um how to convert meaning how to change
your active sentence to a passive
sentence so i will move
over here
can i
okay i'll probably move in between maybe
it's better to go over here okay i'll do
this so changing active to passive let's
talk about this
i explained in part one today that when
we make an active voice sentence
we have this subject
verb object pattern right so i talked
about this like i wrote an email or
whatever with a very basic uh sentence
so
for example if my subject is she mailed
a letter i have that same pattern yeah
subject verb past tense object a letter
the thing receiving the action
another example
we ate
all of the cookies so again subject my
verb past tense all of the cookies
receives this action so how do we change
this these sentences here
are active voice sentences but if we
want to change an active voice sentence
to a passive voice sentence how do we do
that first of all you need to make sure
that you have
these parts of your sentence so
sometimes you i see your comments and
you write to me like how do i make this
passive but there's no object in your
sentence you need that object
so
to do this first take your object
so take the object of the sentence in
this case a letter or all of the cookies
in my example sentences move these then
in your passive sentence to the subject
position so here we're making a passive
voice sentence down here so move your
object move the object of your sentence
into the subject position here so now my
subject becomes a letter or all of the
cookies so that's step one
two when we make passive voice sentences
i explained in part one today that the
next part is b we use a to b verb so
your b
verb should be the same tense
as the verb in the active voice sentence
so in this case these are both past
tense maled and eight these are both
past tense verbs so be in this sentence
should also be
past tense so that means was or were but
make sure your past tense verb matches
your subject by that i mean if your
subject is singular one a letter
your verb should be was singular a
letter was if your verb i'm sorry if
your subject is plural as in all of the
cookies all of the cookies were
eaten in this case so make sure your b
verb a matches the tense of your active
voice sentence and b
matches uh the number of your subject is
it singular or is it plural
finally then
the verb that's used here take the verb
so again same verb here this verb needs
to be made into the past participle verb
form so in this case mailed
in past tense
we have no change so the verb to male is
both is mailed in both past tense and in
past participle form with eight however
we change it to eaton so the verb eat is
eaten in past participle form
so please uh do this three-step process
to convert your active voice to passive
voice another note here that is a little
bit hard to see sorry it's just tiny
writing this says also get get some of
you have asked me about this using get
in the position of b you may sometimes
see people use get or past tense got
and we do this instead of be we choose
this instead of be
for like unexpected things for
unexpected situations like some kind of
surprise it's often for negative things
but not always so i'll talk about some
examples of this but yes this says get
get here also get so you may see get
used in this position so to read our
passive voice sentences a letter was
mailed a letter was mail
or all of the cookies were eaten
so let's try
to convert these sentences maybe you've
already seen the answers first one
uh let's try my dog is chasing me around
the park my dog is chasing me
around the park so how do we change this
sentence from active to passive this is
an active voice sentence my dog is
chasing me so first we have to find
subject verb and object here yeah my
subject is my dog
in this case
and then my verb here i have is chasing
so we're using progressive or continuous
form
then me so this is the object so in
other words me this is the object of the
sentence this is important to keep in
mind
then i have this extra information
around the park so let's focus on this
part my dog is chasing me this part
matches this part here
so to convert i need to take my object
of my verb in this case me and put it in
the subject position
so remember
when you are the subject of a sentence
and you're talking about yourself you
need to use i you cannot use me here i i
then my verb
in this case in my active sentence is
chasing right here
this is progressive so i need to keep
progressive and it's in present
progressive is chasing
so
i
am being so i've used am not is to match
my subject i am not i is i am and then
progressive verb i am being
and then the verb here is chase to chase
so
chaste is the past participle form of
the verb then i can keep this extra
information i am being chased around the
park so that sounds kind of scary uh but
you can use this if you want to make
like a funny sentence or if you want to
i don't know
maybe scare someone for some reason so
this is how we change an active voice
sentence to a passive voice sentence
all right let's try one more
uh one more example we could hear
our neighbors terrible music all night
so my active voice sentence we could
hear
our neighbor's terrible music all night
so again same process where's my subject
where's my verb where is my object here
so here my subject is we
my verb i have here as well
and i also have this word could so let's
keep could there as well and then our
neighbors our neighbors
so we have well our neighbors terrible
music actually sorry our neighbor's
terrible music this is a long object so
this part
is the object of the sentence we move it
to the subject position so our
neighbor's terrible music
could be heard so again i'm keeping that
could and my b
comes before this the main verb here
here so think of could as kind of like
helping us it's helping us in some way
it's like a helping verb here so could
be heard so here becomes heard in past
participle form
could be heard all night my extra
information so this is how we identify
we find the different parts of the
sentence and we move them around
in this way
to change from active to passive so
sometimes yeah sometimes i see your
example sentences and like there's no
object in your sentence so make sure you
have all of these parts to make it
easier to create your passive sentence
uh some examples are coming in kanwal
hello says this software can be updated
by this setup so also make sure like
just another point you don't have to
include that by someone like it's
well i'll talk about this in part three
you don't have to include the person or
the thing
doing the action like in some cases you
want to remove that or you want to drop
it
okay
uh on facebook
everyone's just saying hello
so if you have some examples facebook
please feel free to send them uh i am
watching i'm looking for your example
sentences oh there's one from danny uh
by the time my mother arrived her
cookies had been eaten by my sister very
nice that's very nice good example
sentence thanks danny all right uh
let's go to a break
and then we'll go to part three for
today so i will show you again uh the
pdfs that i showed you earlier but this
time i will pick them up so that they
are not backwards so that you can see
them all hooray
so
if you missed it or if i did not show
you very well earlier uh these are the
free some examples of the free stuff
that you can find from the link below
the video if you are watching on youtube
or above the video if you are watching
on facebook there are many different
topics so on these you'll find here i'll
show you
i'll show you this one so on these pdfs
there's yes some vocabulary words on the
front i know it's a little bit bright
here but on the back
there's a list of expressions so it's
like questions questions answers uh full
phrases so not just vocabulary words so
pick up a couple of these maybe to use
for your studies these are really good
if you're a beginner as well so take a
look and find some topics that are
interesting for you there are lots of
different things here you can find these
from the link below the video on youtube
above the video on facebook on instagram
sorry can't see you right now but check
youtube or facebook all right
let's go to the last part for today's
lesson then if you're just joining
today's topic is active voice versus
passive voice active voice versus
passive voice so let's go to part three
if you have not already please do make
sure to like and share the video so
others can find today's lesson all right
let's go to part three in part three i'm
going to talk about when you should use
active and when you should use passive
so
first let's talk about active voice so
when should you use active voice
use active voice
when you want to focus on the person or
the thing doing the action
so for example you want the
responsibility or you want the credit
for something you want to be very clear
who did this thing for example
i bought you a present i bought you a
present why do we want to use active
here like if i give you a present i want
you to know
it's from me so i use active here i
bought you a present this is much more
natural than passive voice
second
our manager gave everyone over time our
manager gave everyone over time
so in this sentence
the topic is overtime yes but like we
want to use our manager because it's
like who gave us the overtime if you
don't know overtime means extra work so
you're you have more work to do you're
working overtime
over the time that you are scheduled
so in this sentence who gave us overtime
our manager maybe i feel upset or
disappointed i want my co-workers to
know
our manager gave us overtime so in this
case we want to show the responsibility
for a situation
another example he forgot my car keys so
in this case i want to be clear who
forgot them he did so when you want to
show focus when you want uh the person
or the thing acting to be the focus of
this sentence use active voice
in contrast then on the other hand
passive voice when should you use
passive voice this is a little bit
trickier some people say it sounds more
polite or it sounds more professional to
use passive voice in some cases yes
because passive voice uh is can be used
to be less direct
but let's talk generally about a couple
of different things
this if you want to focus on the person
or the thing
receiving the action focus on the person
or the thing receiving the action so
let's talk why why do you want to focus
on the person or the thing receiving
something
a couple of reasons first
uh the actor is unknown so that means
the person doing the action is unknown
we don't know the person who did the
action
or
we're trying to hide something we're
trying to hide something like we don't
want someone to know something there's a
secret
or
we want to focus on a result we want to
focus on the outcome the end of
something so let's look at a couple of
examples of this
first the classic example of theft my
car was stolen my car was stolen so
we use a passive voice in a sentence
like this because
of this reason we don't know the actor
we don't know the person who stole the
car my car was stolen who stole the car
i don't know so we use passive here
in another example
the research data was faked the research
data was faked so research data was
faked faked means someone created it
it's not real
so the research data was faked this is
something you might use to try to hide
something so if like you've discovered
your teammates created fake data but you
don't want them to get in trouble you
might try
to avoid trouble with a sentence like
this the research data was faked
or maybe you don't know who faked it
another example we are being watched we
are being watched so this maybe you've
heard this in like action movies or
suspense movies like uh i'm being
watched actually i'm being watched right
now by all of you uh but in that case
it's like this is the focus situation or
the person being watched is the focus we
are being watched by who
we don't know so we can use passive
voice to describe that
another one our team was helped a lot
our team was helped a lot so you might
use this if you want to focus on the
result so the result in this situation
is the help the speaker's team received
so if you want to focus on something
like this
it can be better to use passive voice to
do that so regarding the issue of uh
passive voice sounding more professional
the reason people say that is because it
can be less direct so
for example you don't have to say
uh like you do this
or like what's a good example i got
recently about an interview so if you
don't know the person who's going to do
the interview you might ask a question
like will the interview be held next
week instead of are you going to hold
the interview next week so if you use
passive voice you don't have to include
the person acting this can be really
helpful if you don't know the person
who's going to do the action so for that
reason it can sound more professional
and more polite but passive voice just
because it's passive is not more polite
or less polite than active passive voice
and active voice are tools that you can
use to make your writing more like have
more depth to make your meaning um
have a little more depth to it so
that is it for today i'm looking for
your examples
some active examples are coming in
edgard says my boss gave me overtime yes
that is an active voice sentence mahmoud
says this painting was drawn by leonardo
da vinci yes so if you want to focus on
the painting as opposed to da vinci yes
great nice passive one
uh
some other examples
on facebook hello everybody on facebook
i
our teacher is being followed okay so
one point be careful about the verb
follow so in that case your grammar
great our teacher is being followed
to follow someone online and to follow
someone in person can sometimes uh like
the meaning can be a little bit
ambiguous meaning like it can sound like
there are two different uh two different
meanings we're not sure which one so
maybe our teacher is being watched or
this lesson is being watched is good
maybe a little clearer uh all right um
um i don't see any other examples yet so
i actually i'm on time today oh my gosh
that never happens amazing so i'll end
there for today's lesson wow there are
so many people watching again amazing
i'll end there for today i hope that
this was helpful for you oh i'll step
off screen so you can take a screenshot
but um
oops sorry my hand was in there you can
take a screenshot uh for your uh notes
if you like but as always i'll be back
next week next week
uh oh how to express amounts will be the
topic i always forget what i planned
next week wow it is february already
it's going to be february already so
please join us next week february 5th is
that the thursday or the wednesday i
don't know
that's the wednesday okay uh so february
5th 9 p.m eastern standard time that is
new york city time if you don't know
your local time please google it or even
better set a notification on facebook or
on youtube you will get
a notification when we begin our live
stream so please join us i'm going to
talk about amounts so if you want to
review for next week's lesson please
review countable and uncountable nouns
everyone's favorite so we'll end there
for today don't forget to check out your
free stuff from the link below or above
the video if you have not already there
are lots and lots of things for you to
look at uh
many i did not show so take a look and
download something there it is all for
free so i hope this lesson was helpful
for you i hope that you got a good tool
to help you convert from active to
passive so i'll stop there for today
thanks very much for liking and sharing
the video as always we really appreciate
it enjoy the rest of your week enjoy
your weekend and i'll see you again next
time
you