ACTIVE AND PASSIVE SENTENCES

CHAPTER I

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE SENTENCES

Sentences can be active or passive. Therefore, tenses also have "active forms" and "passive forms." You must learn to recognize the difference to successfully speak English.

1)      Active form

In active sentences, the thing doing the action is the subject of the sentence and the thing receiving the action is the object. Most sentences are active.

Formula :  

[Thing doing action] + [verb] + [thing receiving action]

Examples:

Tense	Active
Simple Present	Once a week, Tom cleans the house.
Present Continuous	Right now, Sarah is writing the letter.
Simple Past	Sam repaired the car.
Past Continuous	The salesman was helping the customer when the thief came into the store.
Present Perfect	Many tourists have visited that castle.
Present Perfect Continuous	Recently, John has been doing the work.
Past Perfect	George had repaired many cars before he received his mechanic's license.
Past Perfect Continuous	Chef Jones had been preparing the restaurant's fantastic dinners for two years before he moved to Paris.
Simple Future will	Someone will finish the work by 5:00 PM.
Simple Future be going to	Sally is going to make a beautiful dinner tonight.
Future Continuous will	At 8:00 PM tonight, John will be washing the dishes.
Future Continuous be going to	At 8:00 PM tonight, John is going to be washing the dishes.
Future Perfect will	They will have completed the project before the deadline.
Future Perfect be going to	They are going to have completed the project before the deadline.
Future Perfect Continuous will	The famous artist will have been painting the mural for over six months by the time it is finished.
Future Perfect Continuous be going to	The famous artist is going to have been painting the mural for over six months by the time it is finished.
Used to	Jerry used to pay the bills.
Would Always	My mother would always make the pies.
Future in the Past Would	I knew John would finish the work by 5:00 PM.
Future in the Past Was Going to	I thought Sally was going to make a beautiful dinner tonight.

2)      Passive forms

In passive sentences, the thing receiving the action is the subject of the sentence and the thing doing the action is optionally included near the end of the sentence. You can use the passive form if you think that the thing receiving the action is more important or should be emphasized. You can also use the passive form if you do not know who is doing the action or if you do not want to mention who is doing the action.

Formula :

[Thing receiving action] + [be] + [past participle of verb] + [by] + [thing doing action]

Here is a table showing the passive forms for most English verbs:

Tense	Passive	Example
present simple	am/are/is + past participle	He is taken to school by his mum.
present continuous	am/are/is being + past participle	They are being bullied.
present perfect	have/has been + past participle	Have you been interviewed for many jobs?
past simple	was/were + past participle	We were told not to touch anything.
past continuous	was/were being + past participle	Our computers were being attacked by hackers.
past perfect	had been + past participle	His mother had been brought up in India.
future	will be + past participle	Arrangements will be made to move them to other locations.
future perfect	will have been + past participle	All the merchandise will have been shipped by tomorrow.