- America was discovered by Columbus --- América fue descubierta por Colón
- A new road is being built near here --- ¿Una carretera nueva está siendo construida cerca de aquí? --- Se está construyendo una nueva carretera cerca de aquí.
we use passive voice when we don't know the subject of that action, we don't want to say it or it's not necessary. Look at these examples:
- The bank was robbed yesterday --- we don't know who did it --- Robaron el banco ayer
- I've been told you have a new boyfriend --- I don't want to say who told me that --- Me han dicho que tienes un nuevo novio
- The book was published in 1998 --- there's no need to know who published the book --- El libro se publicó en 1998
There are plenty of examples in our daily life: made in China; the last film directed by Ridley Scott and starred by Barden is really good; credit cards are accepted; the thieves were caught; guests are requested to leave their room before 11 a.m.; smoking is forbidden in this area, etc. Notice that most of these sentences are used with impersonal forms in Spanish so an "exact" translation doesn't work.
The other important point is to have clear that passive voice must be used in a natural way, that is, in a context but not as a transformation from active to passive voice and vice versa. Use it when you need it but not only for the sake of grammar.
Nevertheless, here you are some links to work with but you should work on it in spoken English:
http://www.agendaweb.org/verbs/passive-exercises.html
: a page with a lot of exercises
http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/passive/menu.php
: explanation of the passive voice and exercises at the end
http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/esl-passive-voice-exercise2.html
and some more
If you want to read the story we started in class, here you have the link:
http://www.english-test.net/lessons/3/index.html
If you want to read the story we started in class, here you have the link:
http://www.english-test.net/lessons/3/index.html
See you, guys!
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