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  • Hello everyone, I am Mike from Shaw English.

  • Welcome to my English grammar course on the active and passive voice.

  • In this course I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about changing from the active voice to the passive voice.  

  • There will be a lot of homework quizzes as well as many examples to help you become true masters of the active and passive voice.

  • Are you ready to Start learning? Let's get to it

  • So before we can start switching our sentences from active to passive

  • it's very important for us to understand the different parts of a sentence

  • Let's look at our board.

  • We have a sentence written,  'The boy opened the door.'

  • This is an example of an active sentence

  • which usually follows the pattern of subject verb object.

  • Our subject the 'doer' is 'the boy'. 

  • But what did the boy do? 'The boy opened…' 

  • 'open' is the example of an action.

  • What did the boy open?

  • The boy opened the door.

  • 'the door' is the receiver or the direct object.

  • So again, before we can really switch our sentences from active to the passive

  • it's very important for us to understand the different parts of a sentence

  • And the more that we understand different parts of a sentence

  • the easier it will be to switching active sentences to passive sentences

  • So now let's switch our active sentence over to a passive one

  • Here's our sentence from before: 'The boy opened the door.' 

  • Now, we have, 'The door was opened by the boy.'

  • Like I mentioned earlier, for active sentencesthey follow the subject verb object pattern

  • Well it's a little bit different from the passive sentence

  • Before we had the receiver at the end of the sentence

  • now we have the receiver in the beginning of the sentence

  • 'The door was opened…'

  • Wow.

  • Our verb is the same. Or the action is the same.

  • But we have a 'to be' verb added on.

  • 'was opened' is our 'to be' verb plus the past participle of 'open'.

  • Now, it could also be these 'to be' verbs as well.

  • But, we're going to use 'was'.

  • And this will change depending on the tense that we're using in our sentence

  • We also have 'the door being opened by the boy'.

  • Now, the reason why we have it in brackets is because

  • sometimes we don't need to know who is the 'doer'.

  • In this sense, the boy is the 'doer'. 

  • And this 'by' helps us understand that it is the boy who is opening the door.

  • Let's look at some more examples.

  • Okay, so now we have examples of active sentences  that we're going to change to passive sentences.  

  • Let's look at our first one.

  • 'The woman helped the man.'

  • We learned earlier that whenever we're changing active sentences to passive sentences

  • we are going to need to switch our doer and our receiver

  • In this one, the doer, who is the woman, is going to switch places with the receiver, who is the man

  • because now the man is the focus of the sentence and will now come to the front - the man.

  • But what's our action?

  • Well in our sentence beforeour action is 'helped'. 

  • We're going to now change this to the past participle which,  

  • luckily for us the past participle, is 'helped'.

  • Now, we're going to add our 'to be' verb which is 'was'.

  • So the man was helped.

  • By whom?

  • The woman.

  • Which is now at the end of the sentence.

  • 'The man was helped by the woman.'

  • Let's look at our next one.

  • 'The cat bit the girl.'

  • Just like we learned before, we're going to switch our doer and our receiver.

  • So now the girl is in the front of the sentence.

  • 'The girlbit…' The past participle of bit

  • This one's a little bit different.

  • 'bit' is going to change to 'bitten'

  • When we add our 'to be' verb 'was',

  • 'The girl was bitten...'

  • By what?

  • The cat.

  • 'The girl was bitten by the cat.'

  • 'The knife cut the bread.'

  • 'The bread was cut by the knife.'

  • I think we're getting this.

  • 'The student answered the question.'

  • 'The question was answered by the student.'

  • In our last one,'The teacher taught the class.' 

  • 'The class was taught by the teacher.'

  • Wow. I think we're getting better.

  • Let's move on.

  • So earlier we changed some sentences from the active to the passive voice.

  • Well now, let's practice recognizing sentences in the active and passive voice.

  • Our first one, 'The bat hit the ball.'

  • hmm,

  • well, I can see that the doer of my action

  • is the 'bat'.

  • What did the bat do?

  • The action is 'hit'. 'The bat hit…' 

  • What's the receiver?

  • 'the ball'

  • 'The bat hit the ball.'

  • Oh, this is definitely

  • a sentence written in the active voice. 'The food was cooked by the man.'

  • Now, there are some big clues in this sentence.

  • '…by the man.' 

  • Oh, yeah. That's a clue.

  • Also, 'was cooked'.

  • Well here's our past participle and our 'to be' verb

  • This sentence, for sure, issentence written in the passive voice

  • 'The floor was cleaned.'

  • Okay, so I see I have my 'to be' verb 'was'.

  • And my past participle 'cleaned'.

  • But it seems like I'm missing something.

  • I have the receiver but not the doer.

  • It's okay.

  • Like we mentioned before, for some sentences, you may not have the doer

  • This is an example of a passive sentence without the doer

  • 'The essay about the economy was written by the student.' 

  • Now, it's okay. I know this is a big sentence

  • But I know we can do it.

  • Becauseboom” 'by the student'.

  • There's our clue.

  • Also 'was written'.

  • We have our past participle and our 'to be' verb.

  • This is a sentence written in passive voice.

  • And our last one. We're almost there. Stay with me

  • 'The best team won the football game.' 

  • Good job team.

  • Our team is our doer.

  • What did the team do? What's the action?

  • The team won.

  • What did they win? They won the football game

  • This is definitely a sentence written in the active voice

  • Ah, good job

  • That's some good practicing - recognizing sentences  written in the active and passive voice.

  • Now, let's move on.

  • You now have a basic understanding of active and passive voice

  • But you're not done yet.

  • Because you have homework.

  • You are going to change this active voice sentence into a passive one.

  • 'Mike taught the passive voice.'

  • Again, change this sentence into a passive voice sentence and write it in the comments below

  • Also, you have a quiz.

  • You will find a link for the quiz in the description.

  • Please make sure that you 'like' the video as well as subscribe if you want to see more videos by me.

  • Until then, I'll see you in the next video.

  • Hello, everyone.

  • This is Mike from Shaw English.

  • Today, we're going to learn about active and passive voice in English with different tenses.

  • Now, I know many of you know how to use the active voice

  • but switching it to the passive voice can be somewhat confusing.

  • And then now, we're going to use different tenses as well.

  • Past tense, present tense and future tense.

  • Oh my gosh.

  • What are we gonna do?

  • No worries.

  • You are going to be masters of this very soon.

  • So make sure you stay until the end of the video

  • because we're going to do a lot of practice and you're going to have a quiz and homework.

  • Are you ready?

  • Let's get to it.

  • So let's review changing from active voice to passive voice.

  • So here, “The child is opening the door.”

  • We learned, from before, that active voices, they follow the subject verb object pattern.

  • Here our subject, or the doer, is 'the child'.

  • But what is the child doing?

  • The child is opening ...”

  • Here we have 'ing' attached to our  verb, 'open', which makes 'opening'.

  • This is present continuous which means that the child is opening the door right now.

  • At this moment.

  • And of course the receiver is 'the door'.

  • Now, when we're switching over to passive voice,

  • we learned from before, that our doer and our receiver swap places.

  • So like in our sentence here, our doer and receiver are now in two different spots.

  • So 'the door' is now in the beginning of the sentence.

  • And 'the child' is at the end.

  • The door is being opened by the child.”

  • 'The door', still our receiver, is being opened.

  • hmm, so now our verb has changed a little bit.

  • Our action has changed.

  • So we still have 'is'.

  • And we have 'being', so we have ourto beverb

  • but we must continue our present continuous and bring down the 'ing'.

  • So, “… is being…” and we have our past participle 'opened'.

  • “… is being opened by the child.”

  • And here we have our preposition with the doer.

  • And sometimes the doer is left out of sentences.

  • And that's okay as long as we know that the door is being opened.

  • Now, let's practice and learn about some more tenses.

  • All right, everyone.

  • Let's practice going from active voice to passive voice using different tenses.

  • Let's do it.

  • Let's go ahead and practice some of these tenses together starting with the present simple.

  • The teacher helps the student.”

  • So we know that this is an active voice.

  • And now we're going to change it into passive voice.

  • The student is helped by the teacher.”

  • And 'is' is ourto beverb.

  • And the past participle would be 'helped'.

  • Let's look at present continuous.

  • The teacher is helping the student.”

  • Oh there's that 'ing' again.

  • And we'll switch that over to, “The student is being …”

  • ah and there's the present continuous back with us

  • and ourto beverb.

  • 'helped' there is our past participle.

  • “… by the teacher.”

  • Present perfect.

  • The teacher has helped the student.”

  • The student has been helped by the teacher.”

  • Past simple.

  • The teacher helped the student.”

  • The student was helped by the teacher.”

  • Past continuous.

  • The teacher was helping the student.”

  • The student was being helped by the teacher.”

  • Okay, so past perfect.

  • The teacher had helped the student.”

  • The student had been helped by the teacher.”

  • Future simple.

  • The teacher will help the student.”

  • The student will be helped by the teacher.”

  • Future continuous.

  • The teacher will be helping the student.”

  • The student will be being helped by the teacher.”

  • And everyone just remember that this tense is normally not used with the passive voice.

  • Future perfect.

  • The teacher will have helped the student.”

  • The student will have been helped by the teacher.”

  • So, everyone, how do you feel?

  • Feel more confident?

  • Awesome.

  • Hopefully, you have a much larger understanding of how to change active voice to passive voice

  • using different tenses.

  • Now, you're not done yet because you have homework.

  • I want you to change this sentence into the passive voice and put it in the comments.

  • Also, wait, don't go anywhere.

  • You have a quiz.

  • Okay the link for the quiz is in the description below.

  • If you enjoyed this video, please make sure you 'like'

  • as well as subscribe to see more videos taught by me.

  • And until the next video, I'll see you all later.

  • Bye.

  • Hello, everyone.

  • Welcome back to Shaw English.

  • My name is Mike.

  • And today, I'm going to continue teaching you about the active and passive voice and

  • when and how to use it.

  • Now, I know this can be quite challenging,

  • but I know you're also doing your best and you're doing a good job.

  • Make sure you stay until the end of the video because you will have homework and a quiz.

  • Are you ready to get started?

  • All right, let's do it.

  • One of the main reasons why we use passive voice is because we want to emphasize

  • the receiver instead of the doer.

  • For example, “Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.”

  • In this sentence, which is an active voice,

  • Leonardo is our focus, the painter.

  • The Mona Lisa, the painting, is the receiver.

  • We want to switch them to where now the receiver 

  • is in the beginning sentence and the doer is at the end.

  • So now our sentence is, “The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo DaVinci.”

  • Our focus is now on the receiver, the Mona Lisa, rather than the painter, Leonardo DaVinci.

  • Another reason that we change the sentence to the passive voice, is because we do not know

  • the doer of the action.

  • For example, “Somebody stole my cell phone.”

  • I do not know who.

  • So instead, I can express this in the passive voice.

  • My cell phone was stolen.”

  • And again, since we don't really know who did it,

  • we want to focus more on the phone instead.

  • My phone was stolen.”

  • Another reason to use the passive voice could be the doer is just not that important.

  • For example, “The company was founded in 1955.”

  • We may or may not know who founded the company but is not important.

  • What is important is that the company was founded in 1955.

  • Also, “The house was built in 1955.”

  • We may or may not know who built the house.

  • But again, it's not important.

  • What is important is the house was built in 1955.

  • Another reason to use the passive voice is because

  • sometimes we don't want to blame or say someone is responsible for something.

  • For example, “Mistakes were made.”

  • Now, mistakes were made by someone,

  • but we don't want to blame that person.

  • We don't want to say it is their fault. So instead,

  • we just leave them off and say,

  • Mistakes were made.”

  • Another reason to use the passive voice is because

  • the doer is not a specific person.

  • For example, “English is spoken in many countries around the world.”

  • We could addby many people

  • but because it's a really an unspecified group of people,

  • we kind of just leave it off because it's not very necessary.

  • And the last reason why we use passive voice,

  • is for academic writing.

  • Whenever you're doing academic writing, such as essays or articles,

  • we want to make it as least personal as possible

  • and as professional as possible.

  • “I interviewed three people.”

  • Well you can see we have the pronoun 'I'.

  • Well we don't want to use that.

  • We want to switch the sentence over to the passive voice.

  • Three people were interviewed.”

  • I could sayby me

  • but again, we want to take out the 'I' and 'MEs' make it less personal as possible

  • and just haveThree people were interviewed.”

  • Let's move on.

  • Awesome job, everyone.

  • I know you did such a great job. And I know it was tough.

  • But you did it.

  • You now have a basic understanding of the how and when to use the passive voice.

  • But you're not done.

  • You have a little bit of homework to do.

  • The teacher graded the homework.”

  • I want you to take this sentence, change it into the passive voice, and put it in the comments.

  • Also you have a quiz.

  • In the description, you will find a link to the quiz.

  • If you really like this video, make sure you 

  • hit the like button, and also subscribe to see more lessons taught by me.

  • And until then, I'll see you all later.

  • Bye.

  • Hello, everyone.

  • And welcome back to Shaw English.

  • My name is Mike.

  • And today we're going to be reviewing the active and passive voice in English.

  • Now, we've already made a good amount of videos on the passive voice,

  • so if you haven't seen them, make sure you watch it here.

  • Today, we are going to start with reviewing the basic grammar rule for passive voice

  • as well as the how and when to use the passive voice.

  • We're going to do a ton of examples and give you so much practice,

  • that way you are going that way you are going to be masters of the passive voice.

  • Make sure you stay until the end of the video because you will have a quiz and homework.

  • Let's get to it.

  • Let's review the basic grammar for the active and passive voice.

  • We have a lovely sentence here,

  • Dutch colonists founded New York in 1624.”

  • This is an example of a sentence that is written in the active voice.

  • We have our 'doer', the Dutch colonists.

  • We have our action 'founded'.

  • As well as our 'receiver', New York.

  • See active sentences follow the Subject - Verb - Object pattern.

  • Again, our subject, our verb, and our object.

  • Here is our sentence written in the passive voice,

  • New York was founded in 1624.”

  • So in our active voice sentence, 'New York

  • is a receiver and written at the end of the sentence.

  • Well now, in our passive voice sentence,

  • 'New York' is brought to the front because it is now our focus.

  • Also, for our action, we need a 'to be' verb and the past participle.

  • In the active voice sentence, we've had… 

  • we have 'founded' which is written in the simple past tense.

  • Well, our 'to be' verb has to match with being simple past tense so we have 'was'

  • and the past participle which isfounded in 1624.”

  • I can swear something is missing though.

  • What am I missing from this?

  • Ah! “ … by the Dutch colonists.”

  • We don't mention the Dutch colonists here which is our 'doer'.

  • Why don't we mention the 'doer'?

  • As I mentioned in previous videos, sometimes when you write sentences in the passive voice,

  • you leave out the 'doer' because the information is

  • it's unnecessary.

  • Also, we're focusing on New York.

  • So again, there's no reason to mention the Dutch colonists here.

  • Let's move on to some more examples.

  • I need your help filling these blanks.

  • Can you help me?

  • Of course you can.

  • Let's read some of these sentences together.

  • “I ate the pizza.”

  • This sentence is written in the active voice.

  • The pizza _blank_ by me.”

  • This sentence is written, that's right you guessed it, in the passive voice.

  • I need to figure out what word goes in the blank?

  • Well, the action is missing.

  • If I look at the active voice sentence,

  • I see that our action is 'atewhich is written in past tense.

  • We remember from earlier, that our actions in passive voice sentences

  • need a 'to be' verb as well as a past participle.

  • So I know that since this action is written in past tense,

  • my 'to be' verb also has to be written in past tense.

  • So...

  • let's write 'was'

  • as our 'to be' verb.

  • But we still need a past participle.

  • So looking at our action, 'ate'…

  • Let me think

  • There is 'eat', 'ate', 'eaten'.

  • 'eaten' would be our past participle.

  • And of course, who was it eaten by?

  • Me.

  • The pizza was eaten by me.”

  • And it was good pizza.

  • Let's look at our second example.

  • The scissors or blank the paper.”

  • This is a sentence written in the active voice.

  • Our passive voice sentence is, “The paper was cut by the scissors.”

  • Well, since we have to figure out what's in the blank for our active voice sentence,

  • let's look at the passive one to help us with that.

  • The paper was cut by the scissors.”

  • Well, I have my 'to be' verb, as well as our past participle.

  • Now we're going toit's almost like we're going backwards here, right.

  • So, we know that our 'to be' verb, or the tense of our 'to be' verb,

  • has to match our action in our active voice sentence.

  • Our past participle is 'cut'.

  • So when I think about what our action could be,

  • let me see

  • What is …? This is 'cut', 'cut', and 'cut'.

  • Wow.

  • So our action in our active voice sentence is 'cut'

  • because it can't be 'cutted'

  • because that's not a word.

  • So our past tense is 'cut the scissors', 'cut the paper'.

  • Whoa, good job everyone.

  • Let's move on to some more examples.

  • All right, everyone. I need some help finding mistakes in these two sentences.

  • Both of them are written in the passive voice.

  • Let's look at the first one together.

  • The book was wrote by Mike.”

  • Yeah, there's a mistake here.

  • Well I see I have my 'to be' verb, 'was'.

  • But...

  • there's something about this past participle that just doesn't seem right.

  • Well, what is the past participle of write?

  • Let me see

  • There's 'write', 'wrote', 'written'.

  • Oh how did I nothow do we not know that? “written

  • The book was written by Mike.”

  • Yeah, that sounds right. I'm sure it was a good book.

  • Our next one.

  • The criminal was catched.”

  • Again, I see that we have our 'to be' verb which is 'was'.

  • But that feels right.

  • But there's something about 'catched' that doesn't.

  • This may not be the right past participle.

  • So let's think about the word 'catch'.

  • Hmm.

  • We have 'catch', 'caught', and 'caught'.

  • Oh our past participle is 'caught'.

  • The criminal was caught.”

  • And I'm glad.

  • Good job, everyone.

  • Let's move on.

  • I still need your help everyone.

  • Can you please help me figure out whether these sentences are written in the active

  • or passive voice?

  • All right, thanks.

  • Let's look at the first one.

  • The dog licked my face.”

  • Well, looking at this sentence, I do not see a 'to be' verb.

  • And my action 'licked' is just written in past tense.

  • This is definitely written in the active voice.

  • The rat was studied by the scientist.”

  • Whoa, we have a lot of clues here.

  • We can see that we have a 'to be' verb, 'was'.

  • As well as, boom, we have a past participle.

  • And 'by'.

  • We know that by sometimes tells us who's the 'doer'.

  • Well this is definitely written in the passive voice.

  • He kicked the ball.”

  • I don't see a 'to be' verb here.

  • And 'kick'… it's like it's written in the past tense.

  • He kicked the ball.”

  • This is definitely written in the active voice.

  • And our last one.

  • All the patients were interviewed.”

  • Hmm

  • Well we can see the word 'were'.

  • This is a 'to be' verb.

  • As well as a past participle.

  • There is no 'doer'.

  • So we also know that that's normal for passive voice sentences.

  • All right.

  • We did a good job again.

  • Let's move on to some more examples.

  • Okay, everyone.

  • Let's match the tenses in these active and passive voice sentences.

  • Let's start here with this active voice sentence.

  • “I am cleaning my room.”

  • The passive voice sentence of that is, “My room is _blank_ by me.”

  • I can see that I have a 'to be' verb, 'is'.

  • But I'm not done.

  • It's incomplete.

  • Well, if I look at my action in the active voice sentence,

  • we have 'cleaning'.

  • 'cleaning' is written in the present continuous tense.

  • I know from earlier, that my 'to be' verb has to match with the same tense.

  • So, “My room is… “

  • 'being' Oh, that's a great 'to be' verb to use.

  • 'being'

  • But I'm missing the past participle.

  • In our action, in the active voice sentence, we have 'cleaning'.

  • So we have 'clean', 'cleaned', 'cleaned'.

  • My room is being cleaned by me.”

  • Awesome.

  • We're halfway there.

  • Our next sentence.

  • Written in the active voice.

  • “I have made a cake.”

  • And it's a good cake.

  • The passive voice sentence of that is,

  • “A cake has _blank_ made by me.”

  • Well just like before, we have our 'to be' verb, but it's incomplete.

  • We still have to finish it.

  • So let me look back at the active voice sentence

  • to try and help and see if I can figure this out.

  • I have 'made a cake'.

  • Hmm.

  • This seems this is written in the present perfect tense.

  • And I know that my 'to be' verb has to match

  • in the passive voice sentence as well.

  • So, “A cake has…. been…”

  • “A cake has been made by me.”

  • Wow. Good job, everyone.

  • Let's move on.

  • Okay, students.

  • Let's see if we can find the mistakes written in these sentences.

  • Hmm, both are written in the passive voice.

  • Your package will be delivering.”

  • Something doesn't seem right.

  • Your package will be delivering.”

  • This part seems like it's great.

  • It's 'delivering'.

  • That one seems a little bit odd.

  • I can see that I know it's written in the passive voice.

  • And I have a 'to be' verb.

  • And this is future tense.

  • This past participle is wrong.

  • So I think, no, I know the verb is 'delivered'.

  • All right, let's look at our next one.

  • “I has been punished by the teacher.”

  • Oh, something doesn't feel right with this sentence at all.

  • So from here, from our action, on to our 'doer', we can see that this part is correct.

  • 'I has been'

  • I think we have the wrong 'to be' verb here.

  • So instead of saying 'has', we're gonna write 'I have'.

  • “I have been punished by the teacher.”

  • Good job, everyone.

  • Let's move on.

  • For our final example,

  • let's review using the passive voice for academic writing.

  • Here, we have a sentence written in the active voice.

  • In this study, I conducted a survey.”

  • Whenever you are doing academic writing,

  • it's important to leave out words such as, “I” orme”.

  • So, you can switch from the active voice to the passive voice.

  • “A survey was conducted by me.”

  • Again, we want to avoid using words such as “I” ormebecause we are not the focus.

  • We want to focus more on the topic.

  • And in this case, the survey.

  • So we're going to cross out 'by me',

  • add a period, and have,

  • “A survey was conducted.”

  • Now that sounds great.

  • Let's move on.

  • Wow. Fantastic review everybody.

  • You did a great, great job.

  • Now, I know that you're becoming masters going from the active voice to the passive voice,

  • but you're not quite done yet.

  • You still have some homework to do.

  • Everybody loves homework, right?

  • I would like for you to change this sentence into the passive voice.

  • Mike taught the passive voice.”

  • Again change the sentence into the passive voice and put it in the comments below.

  • Also, you have a quiz.

  • You will find a link in the description.

  • If you really really really really enjoyed this video,

  • hit the 'like' button as well as subscribe to see more lessons taught by me.

  • But until the next video, I will see you all later.

  • Bye.

Hello everyone, I am Mike from Shaw English.

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