The Passive Voice

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 2

The Passive Voice

 I can use the passive (for example: the bank was robbed).

The Passive Voice 

The cake was eaten.

Who ate the cake?

Does it matter who?

Sometimes the action is more important

Passive voice

 Subject + be + past participle (+ by + agent [optional])

 Subject + be + past participle (+ by + agent)

Present: Is/are+V3 

Past: was/were+V3 

Practice

Zet deze zin in de passive vorm

 

The teacher explains the lesson.

Practice

Zet deze zinnen in de passive vorm

 

The teacher explains the lesson.

The lesson is explained by the teacher. 

Passive

Tom painted the house.

Passive

Tom painted the house.

The house was painted by Tom.

Make it passive: The chef prepared a delicious meal.

The students wrote the answers.

The mechanic fixed the car.

Lisa waters the plants every day.

They built the bridge in 2010.

Closing activity 

You are detectives. Something strange happened last night. You only have the evidence, not the people. Your job is to describe what you see using the passive voice, and the class will guess what happened.

Example

The door was left open.

The fridge was emptied.

The footprints were found on the kitchen floor.

What do you think happened? 

Example

The door was left open.

The fridge was emptied.

The footprints were found on the kitchen floor.

What do you think happened? 

a break-in, someone snuck in at night, an animal came in, etc. 

Your turn

Write 3 clue sentences in pairs 

Make use of: was/were + past participle (V3)

Ex: was stolen, were taken, was cleaned

Share and we guess  

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