Today I'm at St. James's Park in London, which is right next to Buckingham Palace
It's all blurry you can't really see it
but trust me that is Buckingham Palace
The passive form: What is it why do we use it?
Hey dude!
What are you doing?
Me? I'm just enjoying the water and the sun!
Oh that's nice! Some water, sun, it's all very relaxing, and...
Whoa! What's happening?!
What? What?
oh man! Something bit me!
Oh mate! That sucks
Ah! What bit you?
I don't know
Is it bleeding bad?
Oh that's pretty bad, huh?
I don't feel good
Ah, that's awful
well let me take your mind off that for a second
In English, what is the structure of a sentence?
What?!
Sentence structure?
oh I I really don't want to talk about grammar
Oh come on! We're doing a lesson!
what do I need?
I don't know, a subject
...and?
A verb
A verb! Good! and what else?
an object
Please get an ambulance or something
Yeah yeah, an ambulance, great idea! I'll phone a helicopter or something!
but first, that sentence!
You said "Something bit me"
what?
yeah I think a shark bit me
Are you sure it was a shark?
Dude! It's the ocean! Sharks bite!
Maybe it was a shark
Maybe it was Nemo
Maybe it was me
so if you don't know the subject
the action is more important
you should use the...?
Why haven't you called an ambulance!?
That's right! The passive form
So "Something bit me" becomes "I was bitten by something"
or just "I was bitten"
So, "something bit me" - That's an active sentence
and it changes to
"I was bitten by something"- A passive sentence
now this happened in the past
so that version of B will be a past tense
"was" or "were"
Well the subject is "I"
So it's not "were"
"was" - "I was"
and that verb will always be in "Verb 3" / The past participle
It doesn't matter if it's a future tense past tense or present tense
that verb is always verb 3, past participle,
so "bite" - it's always "bitten"
"I was bitten"
Be careful and remember that when you use a passive voice
it completely changes the direction of the verb
so let me give you an example:
This sentence is an "Active sentence"
A zombie is biting me
Let's use the same subject but change it to "passive"
now it means this...
Come here zombie!
zombie is being bitten
So be careful, it completely changes who receives the action
so why do we use the passive?
Is it just to sound more formal?
I mean yeah it does sound more formal but that's not the only reason
We already learned one reason
it's because we don't know the subject
"Something bit me" - "I was bitten by something"
Maybe we don't know it, or maybe it's just really really obvious
like this example
You are being arrested
Who by!? haha! ...I'm sorry
in both cases the action is more important
the action is the focus of the sentence
but there is one last reason
and this could be more useful in social situations or political situations
Let's see the passive voice first:
"I acknowledge that mistakes were made here"
and he's right mistakes were made
mistakes were made here
a serious mistake was made
clearly mistakes were made
Hmm interesting! Let's hear the "Active voice"
"I think I made a mistake"
"yeah I take responsibility for it"
and there you have it!
in an active voice you can see the subject taking responsibility for the action
whereas in the passive voice
you can avoid responsibility
so maybe you want to avoid responsibility for an action...
you can use the passive voice
I'm gonna go knock on the Queen's door, and see if she wants to come out and play