Passive Voice

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Passive Voice
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Gramática inglesa
Active sentence My brother kicked the ball
Passive sentence The ball was kicked by my brother
In other words In a passive sentence, the
subject of the verb suffers or undergoes the
action My brother becomes what is known as the
agent
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Form of passive
The passive in Spanish is is formed in a similar
way to the English passive
The relevant form of to be (is/was/will be)
past participle

• Ojo!
• In Spanish you must make the past participle
  agree with the subject
• La película fue dirigida por Almodóvar.
• Los alumnos serán controlados por el profesor.

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Ser o estar with past participle?

• It is important to know whether to use ser or
  estar with past participle

La puerta fue abierta por el señor La puerta
estaba abierta
Los documentos fueron firmados Los documentos
estaban firmados

• So
• Use ser to indicate the action being done
• Use estar to describe the result of a previous
  action

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Alternatives to the passive or avoiding the
passive
Why???
The passive is quite common in English but less
so in Spanish and is therefore often avoided.
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Ways of avoiding the passive

• Make the sentence active
• La cena fue preparada por mi abuela
• ? mi abuela preparó la cena

• However, this changes the original emphasis
• So you could make the verb active, keep the
  object first and then reinforce it with an object
  pronoun

? La cena la preparó mi abuela
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2. Make the verb reflexive
Los naranjas se cultivan en España Se vende
casa Aquí se habla español
NB. ? In this structure you cannot use por
agent ? You do not usually use this
structure when the subject is a person as it can
lead to ambiguities Eg. The woman was killed
would not be la mujer se mató as this means
the woman killed herself
So
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• Use the impersonal se
• (a bit like on in French or one in English)

• Al hombre se le mató OR ? Se le mató al
  hombre
• The man was killed
• A los futbolistas se les vio en la calle OR
• Se les vio en la calle a los futbolistas
• The footballers were seen in the street

This structure is often used to get round the
problem of the indirect object if the verb had
been active. (mmm)
? I was given a book ? A book was given to me
Se me dio un libro
? We were told a secret ? A secret was told to
us
Se nos dijo un secreto
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4. Use third person plural
This is another common way of avoiding the
passive particularly in spoken Spanish so some of
the previous examples could be expressed as
follows

• Al hombre se le mató

? Al hombre le mataron

• Se nos dijo un secreto

? A nosotros nos dijeron un secreto

• Se me dio un libro

? A mi me dieron un libro

• Se les vio en la calle a los futbolistas

? Les vieron a los futbolistas en la calle
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Traduce esta carta usando un estilo de español
que parezca natural. Last week was spent in a
hotel in the north of Spain, where we were
treated very well. In the evening we were given
a three course meal and had a bottle of wine. If
desired, breakfast was served in our rooms. It
was said in the tour operators brochure that the
hotel was 2 but we were informed when we got
there that this had been changed to 3 this year.
On Tuesday we were taken to the Picos de Europa
and were provided with a picnic meal by the
hotel. On arrival at the village of Fuente Dé,
we were told that we would be taken to the top of
the mountain in the cable car and then brought
down and picked up by the coach at 6 oclock. We
reckoned that a good time was had by most of us.