Grammar Zone | Active Voice vs. Passive Voice

In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack explain the difference between the active voice and the passive voice.Transcript:00:00:01JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host social. And today we are stepping into the grammar zone and we're going to talk about the active voice versus the passive voice. And so social when we use the active voice, that's.00:00:20JackTends to be our typical like subject, verb, object, sentences, right?00:00:25XochitlYes.00:00:26JackYeah, like the cat chased the mouse. The cat is the subject. Chased is the verb and then the object of the of the cat's interest. What the cat is chasing is the mouse.00:00:43JackWhat if we?00:00:44JackPut that into the passive voice. Uhm, where we kind of basically the subject and the object are inverted. Uh, kind of reversed.00:00:56JackSo for example, the mouse was chased by the cat. Can you think of like a reason why we might use that kind of construction, a passive voice?00:01:10XochitlThe mouse was chased by the cat.00:01:13JackYeah.00:01:14JackI was thinking.00:01:15JackLike we want to emphasize the the mouse instead of the cat, right?00:01:19JackWe're kind of emphasizing that, yeah, because it's like technically it's the object of the of the sentence in the active, you know, the cat chased the mouse. But if we want to emphasize the mouse, we can flip it around and use the passive voice. The mouse was chased by the cat.00:01:19XochitlYeah, I was going to say.00:01:21XochitlToo again.00:01:39JackAnd I wanted to throw one more thing at you here. Like there's another reason sometimes we use the passive voice and and it's when the subject is unknown.00:01:51JackSo.00:01:52XochitlOhh.00:01:53JackCan you think I I was thinking of an example like imagine you're, uh, you wake up in the morning, you go. I know you don't drive, but this is a hypothetical situation. You go out, you you grab your keys, you go out to your your front front yard and your car's gone.00:02:13발표자MHM.00:02:13JackSo we could use, you know, the active voice and we could say someone stole Social's car, but we often don't use the pronoun someone instead of instead you would come back in the house and say, oh, my gosh, my car was stolen.00:02:33XochitlYep, Yep.00:02:33발표자That's.00:02:34JackYeah.00:02:36발표자Yeah.00:02:37JackAnd in the full sentence would be my car was stolen by somebody. But in this case we.00:02:43JackJust the the.00:02:44JackSubject is unknown. We don't know who it is.00:02:46XochitlI think sometimes we do. We might come in and be like someone.00:02:49XochitlStole my car though.00:02:50JackYes, yes, we will say that. Yep.00:02:54XochitlYeah. So I think that's where that would come.00:02:55XochitlInto play.00:02:56JackYes, yes, I and and again this this is the the whole point of like active and passive voice is that you get to choose the style that you and tone that you want to use I think.00:03:08JackThis is. That's why I'm not like a a huge fan of teaching this kind of grammar to my students who are beginners because they it just confuses them. But for students that are like a little bit higher level and want to make their writing a little bit more interesting, I think the passive voice.00:03:17발표자So.00:03:29JackCan be a useful a useful tool, but but it's definitely not necessary. Definitely not necessary. You could just say someone stole my car, yeah.00:03:40XochitlYes.00:03:41JackYeah.00:03:43JackAnd umm, I'm also thinking like in the newspaper. Uh, this is very common in like headlines.00:03:51JackAm I wrong about that? I'm thinking like.00:03:55XochitlLike.00:03:58XochitlLike, yeah, like yes, because you would say an office building was burned down by 27 year old male instead of a 27 year old male burned in an office building or something.00:04:06JackYes, exactly.00:04:10JackRight, right. Or you just might say like an office building, but an office building was burned down yesterday.00:04:17JackYou know, and we they don't know who the perpetrator is. The person that did it. And so you, you again unknown subject. We can just use the passive voice. An office building was burned down and elderly woman was murdered last night in the park. You know something like that.00:04:17XochitlYes.00:04:38JackSorry for these dark examples everybody but.00:04:43JackIt it tends to be like in crime, you know, crime pages like that, those kinds of headlines, I think.00:04:48XochitlRight, yes.00:04:50JackYeah.00:04:51JackOK. Well, I think we've we've pretty much dug ourselves.00:04:56JackWell, we we put ourselves in a grammar hole, but I think we dug ourselves out mostly in this. Yeah.00:05:01XochitlMostly yes. Alright, listeners, if you have any further questions, any grammar questions that you want to shoot our way, make sure to leave a comment down below at AZ englishpodcast.com. Shoot us an e-mail at AZ [email protected] and join our WeChat WhatsApp groups to join the conversation. See you guys next time.00:05:21XochitlBye.00:05:22발표자Bye bye.Podcast Website:https://atozenglishpodcast.com/grammar-zone-active-voice-vs-passive-voice/Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/Tik Tok:@atozenglish1Instagram:@atozenglish22Twitter:@atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcastCheck out our You Tube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8ADonate to the show: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/donationsRobin and Jack started a new You Tube channel called English Word Master. 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