viernes, 14 de septiembre de 2012

ACTIVE VOICE





In most English sentences with an action verb, the subject performs the action denoted by the verb.
    These examples show that the subject is  doing the verb's action.


   

Because the subject does or "acts upon" the verb in such sentences, the sentences are said to be in the active voice.

As the examples below illustrate, a sentence in  active voice  flows more smoothly and is easier to understand than the same sentence in  passive voice.








PASSIVE VOICE



THE PASSIVE VOICE


To construct the passive voice is necessary that the sentence in the active voice count on direct object, ie answering the question "what?", For example:

My sister lost the keys.
What else lost my sister?
The keys (this is the direct object)


The passive voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a "voice") in which the subject of a sentence or clause denotes the recipient of the action (the patient) rather than the performer (the agent). In the English language, the English passive voice is formed with an auxiliary verb (usually be or get) plus a participle (usually the past participle) of a transitive verb.


For example, Caesar was stabbed by Brutus uses the passive voice. The subject denotes the person (Caesar) affected by the action of the verb. The counterpart to this in active voice is Brutus stabbed Caesar, in which the subject denotes the doer, or agent, Brutus.

Passive voice is used when the focus is on the action. It is not important or not known, however, who or what is performing the action.

Example: My bike was stolen.

In the example above, the focus is on the fact that my bike was stolen. I do not know, however, who did it.




Sometimes a statement in passive is more polite than active voice, as the following example shows:

Example: A mistake was made.

In this case, I focus on the fact that a mistake was made, but I do not blame anyone (e.g. You have made a mistake.).






Example
 of Passive Level 2

TenseSubjectVerbObject
Simple PresentActive:Ritawritesa letter.
Passive:A letteris writtenby Rita.
Simple PastActive:Ritawrotea letter.
Passive:A letterwas writtenby Rita.
Present PerfectActive:Ritahas writtena letter.
Passive:A letterhas been writtenby Rita.
Future IActive:Ritawill writea letter.
Passive:A letterwill be writtenby Rita.
HilfsverbenActive:Ritacan writea letter.
Passive:A lettercan be writtenby Rita.