Grammar Esercitazioni di Inglese EGST 2016-2017 Dott.ssa Barbara Meloni teacher.barbara.meloni@gmail.com barbara.meloni@unica.it 1

11 May 2017 Lesson overview Revision of Conditionals Passives Related Grammar & Listening Exercises 2

Passives Why do we use passives?

Passives Compare these two sentences. Are they similar/different?? The hunter killed the lion. The lion was killed by the hunter. The windows have been cleaned. Someone has cleaned the windows.

How are passive sentences formed? Sentence 1 and 4 are active forms, whereas sentence 2 and 3 are passive forms. How are passive sentences formed?

Passives Passive forms are made up of the verb be with a past participle: English is spoken all over the world.

Passives We sometimes use the verb get to form the passive: Be careful with the glass. It might get broken. Peter got hurt in a crash. If we want to show the person or thing doing the action we use by: She was attacked by a dangerous dog. The money was stolen by her husband.

Passives The passive is used to: a. Emphasize an action, rather than who does it (or if no one knows who does it) : Information about the conference must be sent out by Wednesday.

Passives b. Describe a system or a process: All invoices are processed by the finance department. c. Be formal or impersonal: Members of staff were requested to submit their timesheets by the end of the month.

Passives By can be used to say who performs the action: Next week’s team meeting will be led by Marcus Everett.

Passives

Passives Sometimes by is not necessary: My wallet was stolen by someone. Here the use adds no information other than the fact that the thief was human. It is completely unnecessary and sounds wrong. The same is true of examples where the subject is too obvious (I was born by my mother).

Passives Some practice…. WORKING WITH A PARTNER TAKE THE SENTENCE “ THE NEWS IS WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS” AND PUT IT INTO AS MANY PASSIVE VOICE TENSES AS YOU CAN.

Passives THE NEWS IS WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS – PRESENT SIMPLE THE NEWS WAS WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS – PAST SIMPLE THE NEWS HAS BEEN WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS – PRESENT PERFECT THE NEWS IS BEING WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS – PRESENT CONTINUOUS THE NEWS WAS BEING WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS – PAST CONTINUOUS THE NEWS WILL BE WRITTEN – FUTURE SIMPLE THE NEWS MUST BE WRITTEN – MODALS THE NEWS IS GOING TO BE WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS – GOING TO THE NEWS HAD BEEN WRITTEN BY JOURNALISTS – PAST PERFECT