Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham.

I'm so glad you've decided to join me for today's lesson on the passive voice.

We've got a lot to learn, and I think you're going to really enjoy it.

So let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called, "Identifying the Active and Passive Voice," from our unit called, "Three-tenths Forms, Modality, Active Voice and Passive Voice." By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to identify whether sentences are written in the active or the passive voice.

Now today's lesson is going to be extra exciting, because we're going to be learning something which is probably completely new to us, the passive voice.

But don't worry, I'll be here to help you the whole way through.

And I bet, by the end of this lesson, you'll be starting to spot examples of the passive voice in lots of different things that you read.

Let's make a start.

Here are keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Subject, object, verb, active voice, and passive voice.

Well done.

Now, a subject is the noun, noun phrase, or pronoun that does or is the main verb in the active voice.

And an object is the noun, noun phrase, or pronoun that receives the action of the main verb in the active voice.

A verb is a being, a doing, or a having word, as I'm sure you know.

And the active voice is a spoken or written voice in which the subject does the verb in a sentence.

And the passive voice is a spoken or written voice in which the subject is acted upon by the verb.

Now, we'll talk lots more about that as we go through the lesson.

So let's look at our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by looking at subject and object, and finding the difference between the two, and then we'll move on to looking at identifying the active and the passive voice.

Let's get to work.

As I'm sure you know, all clauses contain verbs.

For instance, "the song had a fast rhythm," "when the environment improves," "she had entered the competition," and, "once the whole school was listening quietly." You can see the verbs in each of those highly stood playable, and that shows us these are clauses.

Now, the person or the thing, the noun, the pronoun, or the noun phrase, that does the verb in the clause is called the subject.

So the subject is who or what is doing that verb.

So for instance, the song is doing the verb "had," the environment is doing the verb "improves," she is doing the verb "had entered," and the whole school is doing the verb "was listening." And you might have noticed there we've got that pronoun "she." A pronoun is a word like I, he, she, it, they, we, or you, that can replace a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence.

So we've seen that the subject is doing the verb.

Sometimes we have to look carefully to see which noun, pronoun, or noun phrase is doing the verb in the clause, to see which one is the subject.

Here's an example, "She currently has a nasty bruise on her right shoulder." We've got the verb there, "has," but we've also got three pronouns and noun phrases here.

We've got "she," "a nasty bruise," and "her right shoulder." So which one is doing the verb "has?" Well, we've got to think because that is the subject, the one that's doing that verb "has." And in this case it's "she." "She" is the subject doing the verb "has." And then we can see the subject is coming before the verb that it's doing, which is usually the case.

She currently has a nasty bruise, because "has" is doing that verb, she is the one who is the subject of the sentence.

So I wonder if you can find the verb that's being done in each of these clauses and the subject that's doing the verb.

Pause the video and see if you can work it out.

Well done, great effort.

Let's have a look.

So in a, we've got "interrupts" as the verb, and "he" is the one doing it, so "he" is the subject.

In b, we've got "was being" as our verb, and then "the old cat" is doing that.

For c, we've got "rhymed" as our verb, and then "the next poem" is the subject.

And then we've got "communicate" as our verb, and "we" as the subject in d.

And you might have spotted there, we've got an auxiliary verb, "was," in that verb, "was being." So, remember, an auxiliary verb is often there helping out the main verb in a sentence.

Brilliant job if you've managed to spot those verbs and the subjects that are doing them.

Good work.

Now, a simple sentence usually contains a subject and a verb, and the subject usually comes just before the verb, like we saw.

So for instance, "the secretary sometimes forgets to check," and "what a lot of noise you're making," are both simple sentences.

Here we can see you've got the subject "the secretary," doing the verb "forgets," and we've got the subject "you" doing the verb "are making." So sometimes in questions the subject can be missing.

We might see ones like these, "what is wrong?" "Who wrote this?" We don't have someone there doing something but we do have our verb still "is" and "wrote," because to be a simple sentence we must have a verb there.

And sometimes the subject comes between an auxiliary verb and a main verb.

For instance, "has your dad taken your temperature?" And, "where has the dog gone?" In that first one we've got, "has taken," as the verb with the subject, "your dad," in between.

And the second one we've got, "has gone," as the verb with "the dog" as the subject in between.

So sometimes in questions it can be hard to spot the subject, but we'll always have a verb that we can look for to help us see if there is a subject there.

So true or false? In the sentence, "the engineer fixed the system," that noun "system" is the subject.

Pause the video and decide if that's true or false.

Well done, you're right, that's false.

Now let's see if you can justify why that is.

Try and think about what we said a subject is and explain why that's false.

Pause the video and choose the best option.

Well done, you're right, it's b.

The noun phrase, "the engineer," is the subject because it's the thing that's doing the verb "fixed" in the sentence.

Remember the subject does the verb.

The engineer is the one who's fixing the system.

Great job if you spotted that.

Let's see if you can find the subject and the verb in each of these simple sentences.

And don't forget auxiliary verbs are verbs too, so you can include them in whatever verb you find.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, great effort.

Let's take a look together.

In a, we've got the verb, "will decide." Who's doing it? It's parliament.

So parliament's the subject.

In b we've got "is" as our verb.

Who is being in this sentence? It's "our community." They are the subject.

In c we've got "does, stay" as our verbs, so the subject is "she" in between there because this one's a question.

So sometimes we saw that we get our subject in between those two verbs.

And then in d, we've got "has" as our verb, and then "he" is the subject who is doing that, who is having that voice.

Great job if you spotted those subjects doing those verbs.

Well done.

Now, sometimes the verb is done to another noun, noun phrase or pronoun.

For instance, "the restaurant banned her for shouting at the waiter." We've got that verb "banned," that's what's being done, and we've got the subject, "the restaurant," that's the noun phrase in this case that's doing the verb banned.

The restaurant is banning someone.

Who's the restaurant banning? It's banning "her," so that's the pronoun in this case, that the verb is being done to.

She is being banned.

So that is the object of this clause.

It's the object of the verb "banned." And that's the noun that receives the action of the verb, the noun that the action's happening to, or the action's affecting, or the actions being done to.

So the banning is being done to her, so she's the object.

Now, we do have another noun phrase at the end of the sentence, "the waiter." But this isn't an object of that verb banned because the waiter's not being banned.

So it's not the object in this sentence.

It's not something that that verb banned is being done to.

So the object is what this verb is being done to, affecting, or that the action is happening to.

So here are some more examples of simple sentences that contain a subject, a verb, and an object.

"Suddenly the yacht hit the rocks." Well, we've got that verb "hit," haven't we? And then who's doing it? The subject would be the yacht.

The yacht is the thing doing that verb "hit." But what's the object, the noun the verb is being done to? Well, the yacht is doing that verb "hit" to the rocks.

So the rocks will be the object there.

The verb is being done to the rocks.

Here's another example.

"Before long the community was doing everything it could to help." So "was doing" is our verb there.

Who's doing the doing? Well, it would be the community that would be the subject.

And then what's it doing it to? Well, we could say "everything it could" is the subject here.

That's what "was doing" is being done to.

And here's another example, "the queue reached the edge of the road." We've got that verb "reached." What's doing the reaching? The queue.

So that's the subject.

And then what's it doing it to? Well, it's doing it to the edge of the road.

So "the edge of the road" is a noun phrase there which is having that verb "reached" done to it.

So it must be an object.

Notice that sometimes words come after the object and before the subject.

We've got the word "suddenly" before the subject in the first one, and then we've got "to help" as words after the object in the second one.

I wonder if you can find the subject, the verb, and the object in these simple sentences.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done, good try.

So in a, we've got the verb "raised" being done by the sun's rays, that's the subject, to the temperature, the object.

In b, we've got the verb "closed" being done by "the leisure centre," the subject, to the object, "its doors." And in c, we've got "joined" as the verb being done by "they" the subject to the object, "the queue." Brilliant job if you spotted those.

Notice how often we have more than one word as a subject or an object.

Remember it's not just necessarily one noun, it could be a noun phrase or I can see a pronoun like "they." Really good job.

Now we have to think carefully about which noun, noun phrase or pronoun is the object of a sentence or a verb.

So if I look at this example, it says, "the guard pushed me into the cell." I can see that verb "pushed" being done by the the subject, the guard.

But who's it being done to? Well, it's being done to "me," I'm the one being pushed.

It's not being done to the cell.

The cell is not being pushed.

So the cell is not the object of that verb pushed.

Let's look at another one.

"She gave her autograph to me." We've got that verb "gave." Who's it being done by? "She." So "she" must be the subject.

Who's it being done to? Well, it's being done to the autograph.

That's what's being given.

We can't say "me" is the object because I'm not being given.

The autograph is being given and not me.

So that verb gave is being done directly to her autograph and not directly to me.

So her autograph is the object of that verb gave.

So an object must be a noun, a noun phrase or a pronoun that the verb is done to directly.

And not all simple sentences do have an object.

Here's an example.

"He spoke." We've just got a subject and a verb.

It's not being done to anyone.

But so objects are always nouns, or noun phrases, or pronouns that the verb is done to directly, like we just said.

Here's another example.

"He spoke loudly." We've got a subject doing a verb, but loudly is an adverb, it's not a noun phrase.

So "spoke" is not being done to anyone in this sentence either.

So remember it has to be a noun, or a noun phrase, or a pronoun.

What about this example? "He spoke to me." Well this one's an interesting one because "me" is a pronoun, isn't it? But we've got that word "to" in front of it, so the pronoun "me" is not directly after the verb.

"To me" is a preposition phrase and not an object.

So we've got that word "to" in front of the pronoun "me," which makes it not an object anymore.

If they said, "he hit me," then there's nothing in front of that word "me." So "me" would be the object there.

But because we've written "to me," it's no longer an object, it's now a proposition phrase.

So what if I said this? "He spoke a different language." Well, in this case, a different language is a noun phrase and the verb is being done directly to it.

So that is an object in this case.

So we've got to remember we're looking for a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun, and it must have the verb done directly to it without a preposition in front of it interrupting it.

So, true or false? In this sentence the object is the lesson, "the interaction caused disruption to the lesson." Pause the video and have a think.

Is that true or false? Really well done, good effort.

You're right, that's false.

Now let's see if you can justify it.

We've got two options here.

Which one explains why that is false? Pause the video and have a think.

Brilliant work.

You're right, it's b.

That verb "caused" is done to "disruption" and not "the lesson." The object in this sentence is disruption.

We've got the subject "the interruption" doing the verb "caused" to the object, "disruption." Amazing job if you've spotted that.

Okay, let's try another one.

I'd like to find the subject, the verb and the object in these simple sentences, but not all the sentences have an object.

So remember an object will be a pronoun, a noun phrase or a noun, which the verb is done to directly without a preposition in the way.

Pause the video and see if you can spot them all.

Well done, great job.

So in a, we've got the verb "put" being done by the subject "add" to the object, "the vegetables." "In the stew" can't be the object 'cause we've got that preposition "in" in the way, and the "put" is not being done to the stew directly, it's being done by to the vegetables directly.

So the vegetables are the object of that verb "put." In b, we've got "woke up" as our verb, and then we've got "the soldier" as the subject.

But "due to the sunlight," is not an object because it's got that preposition "due to" in front of it.

Here we've got the verb "sailed" being done by the subject "she" directly to that noun phrase, "the yacht." So in this case, we do have an object.

Really well done if you've spotted that.

Particularly with b, but we've got to see that preposition preventing that from being an object.

Really well done if you managed that.

Now let's do our first task for this lesson.

I'm going to show you some simple sentences, and I'd like you to label the subject, object, and verb, but not all the sentences have an object.

So look out carefully to see which ones you think do.

Here are our sentences, pause the video and see if you can spot the subject, object, and verb in each of these.

Have a go.

Well done, fantastic job.

Now I've already highlighted the verbs in these sentences for you.

We've got spoke, ignored, moved, appreciate, gave, rose and asked.

Now let's look at the subject and objects.

In a, we've got the verbs, the verb "spoke" being done by the subject "she" to the object "the language" is done directly to that word.

In b, we've got the verb "ignored" done by the subject "Mr. Martinez" to the object, "the interruption." In c, we just have a subject.

We've got "the queue" doing the verb "moved," but "towards the doors" is a preposition phrase that can't be an object.

In d, we've got "I" the subject, doing the verb "appreciate," to the object "all your effort." And in e, we've got the subject "Ms. O'Neil" doing the verb "gave" to the object, "her explanation." In f, we've just got a subject doing a verb.

"The temperature" does the verb "rose," but "steadily" is an adverb, it's not a noun, a noun phrase or pronoun, so it can't be an object.

And in g, we've got the subject, "the government" doing the verb "asked" to the object, "the people." If you've managed to get those, you've done a fantastic job of understanding this.

If you're still finding it a bit tricky, don't panic.

We're going to keep thinking about this throughout the rest of our lesson.

So well done.

Okay, we've done the first part of our lesson, "Looking at subjects and objects." Now we're going to see if we can identify the active and the passive voice.

So we've seen that normally a sentence has the subject doing the verb to the object.

For example, "the committee changed the rules." Here we've got the subject, "the committee" doing the verb "change" directly to that object, "the rules." And when the subject does the verb to the object, we call this the active voice.

So we've got one of our keywords there, the active voice when the subject does the verb to the object.

Now sometimes we can make what would normally be the object, the subject of the sentence, and you'll see that now the verb is done to that subject.

Let me show you.

It would become "the rules were changed by the committee." Can you see we've taken that old object, "the rules," and we've made it the subject now? And now the verb is "were changed." So now that verb is being done to the subject.

So when the object becomes the subject like this, we call this the passive voice.

So when the normal object of a sentence becomes the subject and has the verb "done" to it, that is the passive voice instead of the normal way of speaking, which is the active voice.

So in the active voice, the subject does the verb, and in the passive voice, the verb is done to the subject.

For instance, "parliament makes our laws." Here we've got the subject doing the verb to the object.

That's the active voice.

But if we flip that around and put the object as the subject, we would write, "our laws are made by parliament." So now we've got a subject and the verb is being done to it.

So the verb is done to the subject, so this is the passive voice.

And notice how what would normally be the object in the active voice, "our laws," has been switched to become the subject in the passive voice.

That's what makes it the passive voice.

So which of these are true for the passive voice? Pause video and see if you can decide.

Well done, great job.

So you are right.

In the passive voice, the verb is done to the subject.

It's not the case that the subject's doing the verb and the passive voice, that would be in the active voice.

But c is true.

In the passive voice we put what would normally be the object of the sentence as the subject.

So what would be the object in the active voice becomes the subject in the passive voice.

Really good job if you've understood that already.

If you're not sure yet, don't worry.

We'll keep working on this as we go through.

So let's talk about how you can change a sentence from the active voice to the passive voice.

To do that, we make what would normally be the object, the subject.

So in the active voice we would say this, "the secretary took the letter," "Jun interrupted Ms. O'Neill," "Many people speak the language." Here, we can see the objects of these sentences, the letter, Ms. O'Neill, and the language, are the objects of these sentences.

So in the passive voice we're going to make those the subjects.

So we would say "the letter was taken by the secretary," Miss O'Neill's the object, we would say "Ms. O'Neill was interrupted by Jun." She's now the subject.

"The language" was the object, so we'll say, "the language is spoken by many people." So the objects have become the subjects now in the passive voice for these sentences.

And we can see the subjects are now at the start of the sentence.

They used to be the object, now they've become the subject at the start there.

So which of the following is the passive voice version of this sentence? "Andy made several suggestions." Pause the video and see if you can put that object, "several suggestions" as the subject of the sentence in the passive voice.

What should it sound like? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good try.

So you're right, it's c.

We had that object as "several suggestions." We've moved it to become the subject, and now it says ,"several suggestions were made by Andy." Great job if you spotted that one.

So we've seen that to create the passive voice, we move the object of an active voice sentence to become the subject.

So in the active voice we would say, "my neighbours looked after the cats," and we've got the subject doing the verb to the object.

So the active voice sentence here emphasises who's doing the looking after.

It's emphasising that my neighbours are the ones doing that verb "looking after." So we take the object to that sentence, "the cats," and make it the subject in the passive voice.

And it would say, "the cats were looked after by my neighbours." So here we've got the subject, "were looked after" is our verb now, and now we've got this phrase at the end, "by my neighbours." Now, what was the subject is now a preposition phrase.

My neighbours were the subject.

It's now in a preposition phrase using that preposition "by," "by my neighbours." Now you might remember, we said if it's in a preposition phrase, it can't be an object.

So we don't call this an object anymore because of that preposition "by" in front of it.

So instead of an object, we now have a preposition phrase at the end of our passive voice sentence.

So we can see that in the passive voice we use an auxiliary verb based on "to be" and a past tense verb.

Let me show you.

"The cats were looked after by my neighbours," and "the language had spoken by many people." We've seen both of these.

So we've got an auxiliary verb based on "to be," "were," and "is." We've got a past tense form of our main verb, "looked after" and "spoken." And then we've seen that we also often but not always, use the preposition "by" after the verb to start a preposition phrase with the old subject.

So we've got "by my neighbours," and "by many people" here.

So what suggests that this is a passive voice sentence? "This mess was caused by a mischievous child." Pause the video and see if you can spot all the features that hint to us that this is a passive voice sentence.

Have a go.

Well done.

That was a challenging question.

Let's see if we've got it.

So a says the verb "was caused" is being done to the subject, "the mess." That's correct.

In b, it says the sentence has an auxiliary verb based on "to be" "was" paired with a main verb "caused." Yes, that's true, and that's a common feature of all passive voice sentences.

C says the sentence uses the preposition "by," which is true.

Again, not all passive sentences do as we'll see later on, but this one does, which is a good hint.

D says the sentence has a subject, "this mess," which comes before its object "a mischievous child." Well, that's not true because in this sentence, "by a mischievous child," can't be an object because it's in that preposition phrase.

So that's not true in this case.

Amazing job if you spotted those three features, which hint to us this is a passive voice sentence.

Good job.

Let's try another one.

Which of these sentences are written in the passive voice and which are written in the active voice? So remember those clues we've talked about for identifying a passive voice sentence, and see if you can pause the video and work out which of these sentences are passive and which are active.

Have a go.

Well done, great effort.

Let's take a look.

So a says, "the head teacher criticised our behaviour." Here we've got a subject, "the head teacher," doing a verb "criticised" to an object, "our behaviour." So this is the active voice.

B, it's the passive version of that sentence.

We've taken that object, "our behaviour," and made it the subject.

"Our behaviour was criticised by the head teacher." And we've got those two clues there, the auxiliary verb "was," and that preposition "by," which hint towards the passive voice as well.

C says, "I was embarrassed by my dad." Now here we've got an auxiliary verb "was," we've got a past tense verb, "embarrassed," and that preposition "by," which suggests this is a passive voice sentence.

And we can tell it is because D is the active version of that sentence.

So here we've got "my dad embarrassed me," a subject doing a verb to an object.

C is the passive version of that.

We've taken the object "me" and changed it to "I" to make it the subject.

Really well done if you've managed to identify those active and passive sentences.

So let's do our final task for this lesson.

I'd let you to decide whether each sentence is written in the active or passive voice.

Here are the sentences.

Pause the video and see if you can decide in each case using those hints and ideas we've discussed.

Which ones are active and which ones are passive? Have a go.

Really good job, fantastic effort with that task.

Well done.

So let's have a look at each of these and see what we think.

Now you can see I've already highlighted some of the verbs, which tell us that these are passive voice sentences.

So a is an active voice sentence.

"Humans have damaged the environment." There we've got humans are subject doing the verb "have damaged" to the object "the environment." So in that case it's an active voice sentence.

B says, "my pronunciation was corrected by Ms. O'Neill." That's the passive because the active version would be, "Ms. O'Neill corrected my pronunciation." We've taken that object, "pronunciation," and made it the subject.

C is also the passive.

We would normally say in the active voice, "a lightning strike interrupted the silence." But that object, "the silence," has been made the subject.

So now it says, "the silence was interrupted by a lightning strike." D is in the active voice, "Ms. O'Neil corrected my pronunciation." Can you see how that's the active version of b in the passive? E says, "we were shocked by the length of the queue." Now you can see h is the active version of this.

It says, "the length of the queue shocked us." So we've taken "us" and made it "we" as the subject, and made it the passive voice.

"We were shocked by the length of the queue." As we said before, the active version of c would be f, "a lightning strike interrupted the silence." Here we've got a subject doing a verb directly to an object.

G is the passive version of a.

A was, "humans have damaged the environment." We've taken that object, "the environment," made it the subject, and it says, "the environment has been damaged by humans." That's the passive voice.

And in h, we've got "the length of the queue shocked us," which is the active voice.

Amazing job if you've managed to spot those differences.

Great work.

Okay, let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We learned that a verb is done by a subject, and can be done to an object.

We learned that a simple sentence usually contains a subject doing a verb, and it can also contain an object that the verb is done to.

We learned that when a subject is doing a verb to an object, we call this the active voice.

And we learned that when a verb is done to a subject, we call this the passive voice.

It's formed using an auxiliary verb and a past tense form of the main verb.

Now that's an enormous amount of learning we've done in this lesson.

You've done a fantastic job to get all the way through and to answer those tasks so well.

Really well done, and I hope to see you again in a future lesson.

Goodbye.