The passive

• 7 The passive

  7.1

  Present / Past Simple Passive

  

  

  The passive voice places the receiver of the action in the subject position, emphasizing "what happened to" rather than who performed the action.

  Structure: 主语 + be + 过去分词(the tense of be determines the sentence's tense)

  • Present Simple Passive: am / is / are + past participle.
  • Past Simple Passive: was / were + past participle.

  英语English （被动）is 说spoken 这里here.

  English is spoken here.

  （冠词）The 窗户window （被动）was 打破broken.

  The window was broken.

  Note Active to Passive: The object moves to the subject position, and the verb changes to be + past participle. They built it. → It was built.

  7.2

  by + Agent

  To specify "by whom" the action was done, use by + agent:

  这This 书book （被动）was 写written 被by 鲁迅Lu Xun.

  This book was written by Lu Xun.

  When to use the passive?

  • When the doer is unknown or unimportant: The road was repaired.
  • To emphasize the receiver: The painting was bought by a museum.

  Note If the agent is unimportant, by … is often omitted: The shop is closed.

  Common Errors

  • ❌ ~~The window was broke. / The book was wrote by him.~~ → ✓ was broken / was written — Use the past participle for the passive, not the past simple; memorize the third column of irregular verbs.
  • ❌ ~~It was happened last night.~~ → ✓ It happened last night. — Intransitive verbs like happen, appear, and die do not have a passive form.
  • ❌ ~~My phone was stolen by someone.~~ → ✓ My phone was stolen. — by someone / by people is redundant; delete it directly.
  • Chinese says "I was born in…" using an active structure, but English always uses the passive: ✓ I was born in Chengdu.

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