Active and Passive
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Hi everyone. Welcome to ESL Speech Connect. Today we're going to compare the active and passive forms. Now, sometimes the passive form can be a little bit confusing because we don't necessarily use them as often as we use the active form. Although you do hear the passive form more than you realize. So let's go ahead and review what the passive form is.
We use the passive when it's not important to know who is doing the action, or we don't know who's doing the action, but rather it's important to know who or what is receiving the action. So that's what's important in the passive who or what is receiving the action. So right now we're going to look at some passive forms in the present, past, and future.
So let's start with the present tenses and the present simple. So here's an active sentence. "The choir sings the song". We have the subject 'choir' 'sings' as the verb. And what's the object? What do they sing? The song. So that's the active form. Now, to make the passive, we take the object 'song'. The song is receiving the action.
So we take the object and then we make it the subject. So the song is in the simple tense form. So we say 'is' 'sung by the choir'. So our form changes a little bit. It's in the simple, so 'sings', so now we use is or are plus the past participle form. So it's really important to learn the structures and they're really not that hard once you learn them.
Passive always uses a form of "be". So the song is sung by the choir, and we wouldn't even have to put 'by the choir'. We just kind of, if we know it, we can put it at the end. But, the object, which is ' song', is now the subject. So our form is Object plus "is" or "are" plus the past participle. All right, let's look at the present continuous.
We'll start with active. "The choir is singing the song". So something that's happening right now presently. Currently. It's continuous, ongoing. So once again, the 'song' is receiving the action. So 'song' becomes the subject. The song is being sung by the choir. So our form is, 'is' or 'are' plus 'being'-- because we are in the continuous-- 'being' and then past participle of the verb 'sung' is or are being sung, "the song is being sung by the choir".
Let's look at present perfect. So our active sentence: "The choir has sung the song". Remember, present Perfect is 'has' or 'have' plus the past participle, you know, 'has' or 'have', depending on singular or plural, the choir has sung the song, present perfect. Passive. "The song has been sung", so we still use 'has', but then our passive form is 'been'. So remember we have to use a verb of 'be' so 'been'-- "the song has been sung" and then past participle once again. All these passive forms are going to have the past participle. Let's look at present perfect continuous. The active form. "The choir has been singing the song". Present Perfect. 'Has' or 'have been' singing. So let's look at what the passive form would be.
'The song has been', and now you need 'being': "The song has been being sung". Does that sound right? Well, actually, I'm told that this is grammatically possible, but this form is rarely used and it's awkward and, we *DON'T* like to use it. I do not recommend using this form. Oh, it's terrible, so I would never use it.
So here we don't really, we would not wanna use the passive of this form. Instead, I would suggest just use the other forms. "The song has been sung", "the song was being sung", but not, not this last one. It does not work.
Let's look at our past tenses. Let's look at this past simple or simple past. "The choir sang the song", simple past 'sang' passive form. "The song was sung by the choir". So, because it's in the simple past, we're gonna need to use a form of "be". Simple past of "be" is, "was"-- "was sung" and once again 'was', or 'were' plus the past participle. So that's our form.
All right, now let's look at past continuous active form. "The choir was singing the song", so the passive form, "The song was being sung by the choir''. 'Being', that's your verb of "be" form. Actually, verb of "be" form is 'was', and then you've got your other passive form, which is 'being', so that being makes it passive. Let's look at the past perfect. Remember Past Perfect uses 'had' "The choir had sung the song", had sung. So with past, perfect, it doesn't matter if you're subject to singular or plural, it's always "had".
So the passive form is, 'the song had been sung', "The song had been sung by the choir". So the form is 'had' plus 'been' plus the past participle, so that 'been' makes it passive.
All right, let's look at past perfect continuous. Our active sentence is: "The choir had been singing the song"-- 'had been singing'. Okay. And again, we use the past perfect in the past with another event or another action. Usually one happened before another, and they're both completed in the past. And the passive form: "The song had been being sung". Once again, there's that 'been being' or form of be with 'being'. That doesn't work. Once again, we *DON'T* want to use that. It's very, very rare. It's not something you're going to use in your everyday conversations. It's rare and awkward. In fact, don't use it.
All right. This brings us to our future tenses. So the simple future, our active sentence: "The choir will sing the song" we're looking into the future-- "will sing". The passive, "The song will be sung by the choir". 'Will be' so 'be' here, makes it passive. "The song will be sung" and you've got your past participle. So 'will' plus 'be' plus the past participle form.
Now let's look at future continuous. So our active form here, "The choir will be singing the song", future continuous 'be singing', 'will be singing'. So the passive form. Would be "The song will be being sung". And once again, this doesn't work too well. So, this form is very awkward and should not be used.
Alright, so let's look at future perfect. An active form. "The choir will have sung the song" 'will have sung'. Okay, so what would the passive be? The song will have. And if you can remember from our previous Perfect Tenses we have, 'been' 'will have been sung'. So passive of the future perfect is 'will have' plus 'been', plus past participle.
Let's look at Future Perfect continuous. So the active form, "The choir will have been singing the song". 'Will have been singing'. Let's look at the passive. "The song will have been being sung by the choir". Once again, one of those rare and very awkward, sentences. Don't use that. *DON'T* use the passive of the future perfect continuous.
So those are some of our 12 verb tenses with the passive. And you can see here the perfect continuous tenses in the passive voice. Present perfect continuous, past perfect, continuous, future perfect continuous. Typically in daily passive forms, we don't use those, but in practical communication, the *most passive constructions usually occur in the simple and the perfect tenses.*
And also we hear them in, present, continuous. Those are also pretty common. We use passive a lot in the these tenses for talking about facts, general statements and scheduled events. Official reports, news reports. When you watch the news, notice the passive forms. The journalists use these a lot when they're giving a news report, instructions and formal writing.
So you may not use the passive all the time or every day, but it is good to know and it's good to understand how and when it is used. Now, there is a PDF of these notes, and if you would like that PDF, check the link below and for more practical uses with the passive, you can check out my next video and see some examples in a news story.
Happy learning everyone.
