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hi everybody my name is Alisha welcome
back to English class 101 comms YouTube
channel today I'm going to talk about
the difference between active voice and
passive voice in this lesson I want to
explain a few ways that I think can help
you decide how to choose between active
voice or passive voice this will be
hopefully useful for your speaking and
for your writing skills so let's get
started
okay the first thing I want to talk
about is the active voice English uses a
lot of sentences in the active voice we
like to use active voice a lot in speech
and in writing so we use active voice
when we want to place emphasis on the
subject like the person or the thing
that is doing an action or causing an
action so the emphasis here is on the
subject we know the subject of the
sentence in the case of the active voice
and we want to emphasize that the person
who is doing an action for example you
want to emphasize that you know who is
doing the action use the active voice so
an example could be a thief stole my bag
in this situation we know a thief stole
my bag here the simple past tense is
used and we have my bag as the object
here so everything is clear everything
is known in this sentence I'm going to
talk about a different style a different
way to explain this sentence in just a
moment but we can use the active voice
to explain a situation like this another
example my coworker deleted an important
file so here's another situation we know
who did the action my coworker in this
case simple past tense deleted here
shows the action that happened the
action that occurred and what was
deleted an important file here so again
I'm going to talk about a different way
to explain this sentence in just a
moment but these are a couple ways we
can use active tense or active voice
rather when all the information is known
some more simple sentences I ate dinner
again the subject the verb and a
and what was being eaten here in this
case I ate dinner very simple sentence
here he took me to a movie so we know
the subject the action who is receiving
the action in this case it's me
here she made dinner again very very
simple sentences we can make simple
sentences in just three words for
example with the active voice it's very
very easy to use active voice we just
need to know the subject what they did
and who received the effect or who that
action occurred to to put it in a
strange way so we can use active voice
to explain a lot of things in a very
very short way but sometimes active
voice is maybe not the best choice so
let's take a look at passive voice and
see if we can compare a few things here
when we talk in the passive voice or
when we write in the passive voice we do
it because we want to place emphasis on
the object of an action something which
is receiving the action we want to place
the emphasis on that or we use it when
the subject is unknown or unimportant so
to give a few examples let's look here
my bag was stolen here my bag this is
the thing that an action has occurred to
so in you can think of it like the bag
is the one or is the object that is
receiving the action here my bag was
stolen my bag was stolen so we have to
use a different grammar to explain in
passive voice so the difference here my
bag was stolen the difference between
this sentence and a thief stole my bag
is that we don't have a clear doer of
the action we're not talking about
specifically who stole my bag but rather
the important point here is that my bag
was stolen it doesn't matter who or we
don't know who stole the bag but I want
to emphasize this situation in this case
passive voice is much much better than
active voice because I don't know the
subject perhaps let's look at one more
example an important file got deleted so
here you'll see
got we use God a lot this past tense got
to a rather past participial got in in
passive voice a lot it gives kind of
more of a nuance of something negative
occuring it gives sort of the feeling
that a negative outcome has happened as
a result of the situation so you might
see got deleted or got plus the verb in
this case so here I've used got deleted
I'll show you one more in just in just a
second so here an important file got
deleted let's compare this to the active
voice my coworker deleted an important
file in the active voice I know who
deleted the file my coworker deleted the
file in the passive voice however I
don't mention my coworker so maybe I
don't know who deleted the file I don't
know who completed the action who did
the action so I can drop that name I can
drop my co-worker I can drop the name of
the person who did the action I want to
emphasize the situation the the file the
important file got deleted that's what I
want to emphasize in this case I should
use the passive voice this sounds much
much better if I want to emphasize the
important file if however I want to
emphasize my coworker
for example I'm angry with my coworker I
could say my coworker deleted an
important file in this case the emphasis
is my coworker in this sentence the
important file is the emphasis so this
is a really key point between the
difference between active and passive
forms okay
let's look at a few more examples so
next one your lunch got eaten so again
I've used this got here yeah I've used
got plus eaten the past participle form
of the verb so as I talked about in this
sentence got deleted we use got to show
kind of a negative outcome something we
didn't want to happen necessarily this
is very common in passive voice so your
lunch got eaten by whom we don't know
somebody ate this person's lunch but we
don't know who did the action so we can
omit that person and we can simply
emphasize your lunch your
this is the focus of the sentence your
lunch got eaten okay let's take a look
at one more sentence their window was
broken their window was broken we don't
know how the window was broken maybe it
was a person maybe it was a burglar
maybe it was bad weather maybe just a
strange accident we don't know how or
who broke the window so we can omit we
can remove any identifying information
about who or what completed the action
instead we focus on the window their
window was broken this is the focus of
this sentence finally let's look at one
more flowers were delivered to the
office in this sentence we don't know
where the flowers came from who ordered
the flowers we don't know any
information about the situation but we
simply want to report something we saw
at the office for example we can use the
passive tense to do that flowers were
delivered to the office so in in each of
these sentences we don't know or it's
not important who did the action or what
did the action but we want to emphasize
the object of the action we want to
emphasize the the person or the item
receiving the action in this case in
active voice however we want to
emphasize the person doing the action of
the thing doing the action so please
keep this in mind when you're trying to
choose between active voice and passive
voice if it's a known subject or if you
want to emphasize that subject more
strongly than the item receiving that
action use the active voice if you don't
know the subject or if you want to
emphasize the object of the action use
the passive voice I hope that those were
a few good points I hope that those are
a few helpful ways to help you remember
how to use active voice and passive
voice but if you have any questions or
comments let us know in the comment
section or try to make a few sentences
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