For many people learning English, the passive voice (passive voice) is very difficult to understand structure. Despite the fact that the Russian language also has a similar form, for example, the results of the competition will be announced tomorrow or the report was submitted yesterday , the use of this grammatical construction in a foreign language often causes difficulties. In our native language, we operate in various forms indiscriminately, using an innate sense of intuition. Fortunately, considering the English passive voice, you can also give specific cases of use and paint the forms of education. But, first of all, it is necessary to understand what this structure is.
The category of pledge, active or passive, indicates whether the subject performs the action or whether a particular action is performed regardless of the presence of the subject in the sentence, for example,
Alex performed a stunning presentation at the meeting yesterday . In this situation, the subject is important -
Alex , who committed the action. In the sentence
A stunning presentation was performed at the meeting yesterday, the subject who committed the action is absent - the action itself is important.
So, the passive voice is formal use cases:
1. If you do not know who committed the action.
They were robbed yesterday. Yesterday they were robbed . It is not known who did this, we can only assume: Somebody robbed them yesterday . In general, if in an active voice the subject can be represented by the word somebody , then it is more advisable to use a passive voice.
2. If it does not matter who committed the action or the subject may be represented by an indefinite group of persons.
An earthquake is measured on the Richter scale .
An earthquake is measured on the Richter scale . Of course, we can assume that seismologists, specialists or scientists change the strength of the earthquake on
the Richter scale, but in this situation it does not matter - no matter who measures, the fact of measurement is important.
3. If we need to transmit official information, for example, in the news.
The criminal was caught yesterday . In this situation, the form of passive voice is equivalent to the form of active. Even if we know that the police caught the criminal The police caught the criminal yesterday , in this proposal it is more appropriate to use a liability, since its use makes the proposal official.
In addition to formal cases of using this construction, we can mention more specific situations in which it is appropriate to use a passive voice. Examples of such situations include cases where it is known for certain who committed the action, but you do not want to mention the names.
For example, in the case of the dissemination of unofficial information, gossip: imagine the situation at work -
Anna told me that Mr Smith is going to fire Jack . Having set out this information in passive, you can get a better offer in terms of tact and delicacy, without putting people in an uncomfortable position, sharing this data:
I was told that Jack is going to be fired soon .
The use of this construction is common among children who do not want to admit misconduct and prefer to use forms like Look, the vase has been broken or All sweets have been eaten instead of I have broken the vase and I have eaten all sweets . In addition, the passive voice is appropriate to use in texts of business, political, scientific and technical content. To make it official, it is used in business letters, reports, instructions, articles, etc. Also, the use of liability is widespread in news publications and popular science magazines.