Simple Passive: Be + Past Participle
In the passivevoice the Complement of the active voice becomes the Subject and the verb (past participle) is preceded by "be" ("be" must agree with the tense of the active voice). The subject of the action is then used as a complement introduced by "by" (if the speaker considers it is necessary to mention.)
The President is giving a speech. (Active voice: the subject does the action)
A speech is being given by the President. (Passive voice: the subject doesn't do the action)
They arrested the thief. (active voice) / The thief was arrested. (passive voice)
We often use the passive:
- so that we can start a sentence with the most important or most logical information
- when we prefer not to mention who or what does the action (for example, it's not known, it's obvious or we don't want to say)
- in more formal or scientific writing.
The interview was recorded yesterday.
Cleaner sources of energy must be developed.
An electrical fault is believed to have caused the power cut.
Exercises
The impersonal and personal passive voice
The impersonal passive is used with reporting verbs such as allege, believe, claim, consider, estimate, expect, know, report, say, think, understand, etc. It reports what an unspecified group of people say or believe.
The impersonal passive has two forms:
it + be + past participle + (that) + subject + verb:
It is estimated that millions of people visit the site every year.
It is believed that the walls date from the third century BCE.
It is reported that mosquitoes transmit the disease.
It has been alleged that members...
It was said that members...
someone/something + be + past participle + infinitive:
Millions of people are estimated to visit the site every year.
The walls are believed to date from the third century BCE.
Mosquitoes are reported to transmit the disease.
Members have been alledged to...
Members were said to ...
Note that the infinitive can be simple (as above), perfect (for a past action) or continuous (for an action in progress).
Millions are estimated to visit the site this year. (simple infinitive)
The walls are believed to have been built in the third century BCE. (perfect infinitive)
Mosquitoes are reported to be transmitting the disease. (continuous infinitive)
Exercises
Passive infinitives and gerunds
We use passive infinitives or passive gerunds to describe actions which are done to the subject.
He is too young to be allowed to be here.
This place needs to be taken care of.
I don’t mind being told what to do.
He denied having been offered money to kill the senator.
Exercises
The passive with "get"
In informal English, get is sometimes used instead of be to form the passive.
My bike got/was stolen last night.
We got/were outplayed by the French team.
Have something done
We use have + object + Past Participle when we talk about someone doing something for us which we ask or instruct them to do. It emphasises the process/action rather than who performs it:
We're having the house painted next week.
(We are not going to paint the house ourselves. Someone else will paint it. The emphasis is on the fact that the house is being painted rather than who is doing it.)
They had they car stolen.
(‘They’ are affected by the action of the car being stolen but they did not cause this to happen.)
Hundreds of people had their houses destroyed by the hurricane,
(Hundreds of people were affected by the hurricane, which they did not cause.)
Asking or instructing
We use the pattern have + object + infinitive without to when we talk about instructing someone (underlined) to do something. We use it to emphasise who performed the action:
I’ll have Harry book you a taxi. (I will instruct Harry to book a taxi for you. Emphasis is on who will do the action more than on the action.)
He had Kay make us all some tea.
Talking about an experience
We use have + object + -ing form or infinitive without to to talk about an event or experience. We use the -ing form for an event in progress and the infinitive without to for a completed event:
We had a man singing to us as we sat in the restaurant having our meal.
We had a strange woman come to the door selling pictures.
We can also use the -ing form to describe an ongoing action that someone or something is causing:
Her story had us laughing so much. (Her story was making us laugh.)
I just had them doing stretch routines, and after, they got really good at it.
