Content
There are two possible ways to account for the events that occur:
- Doingfocus on who performs the action, that is, in the active subject.
- Doing focus on the consequence of the event or who receives it, which would be the object or the taxpayer.
In Spanish, Most of the expressions are materialized in the first way, placing the active subject in the initial position and then the verb as an active verb, in the way and time that corresponds according to the case.
In EnglishThe use of structures that enhance the taxpayer is quite frequent, especially in formal journalistic, scientific or technological discourse. Sentences thus constructed are known as passive sentences.
Examples of passive voice sentences in English
- All flights were canceled because of the snow.
- The interview will be held at the CEO’s office
- We were not told about these disadvantages.
- The cake was prepared following the original recipe.
- Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming.
- The house was completely renovated last century.
- Romeo and juliet was written by William Shakespeare.
- My mother was born in Madagascar.
- All those oaks were planted in 1960
- The sweater was found inside the old suitcase.
- Very few speakers were announced that evening.
- A new biosensor was constructed.
- Was your motorcycle stolen again?
- There are things that can't be explained.
- They expected to be received by the Prime Minister.
- That show was already sold out when we tried to get tickets
- We were invited to his birthday party.
- Your flat must be painted if you want to rent it.
- That issue will not be discussed at the meeting.
- The abbey was rebuilt after the Second World War.
Characteristics of these sentences
In the syntactic, passive sentences are recognized by presence of the auxiliary verb "to be" conjugated in the necessary verb tense, followed by the participle of the verb that will specifically explain what is referred to.
In some cases there is no way to accurately identify the active subject: if we want to imply that we have an old red wine, bottled in 1965, for example, we will say in English “This red wine was bottled in 1965”, which is a passive sentence without an agent complement, while in Spanish we would have the option to say “This red wine was bottled in 1965” or “This red wine was bottled in 1965”. The last two sentences are passive structures in Spanish.
Obviously it is not relevant in this case the complement agent, because it is hardly interesting to know who was the person who bottled the wine. In other situations, it is possible to raise the idea by mentioning the agent complement or omitting it. For example, you can say “Spines is frequently spoken in Miami” or “Spanish is frequently spoken in Miami by Cuban and Mexican people”, in this case the second message gives more information than the first.
Andrea is a language teacher, and on her Instagram account she offers private lessons by video call so that you can learn to speak English.
