The ESL HELP! Desk

     Some years ago, a dam and hydrodlectric power station were built along the Ob River.  Water covered tens of kilometers of land.  And so the Ob Reservoir, which became known as the Ob Sea due to its great size, was created. It is really very big.
     The Ob River travels through Novosibirsk and a smaller town called Akademgorodok. Here, we have an artificial, sandy beach, called Akademgorodok Beach.  Trains with sand were brought in and unloaded here in order to create the beach.

Differences between Active and Passive Voice

 

Follow this link and answer the questions about the paragraph above:

 

When a sentence begins with the do-er of the action and the main verb is transitive and therefore requires an object, we have a structure depicted as S-V-O.  Such a sentence is active voice.

However, if the verb has an object, the English language also allows us to begin a sentence with the object and this type of sentence is known as passive voice.  The passive voice sentence, in addition to having the object before the verb, also requires a unique and different verb form.

Next.... When Can We Use Passive Voice?

 

We continue with our next lesson, where we develop the question "When can passive voice be used?" and "When should passive voice be used?" and give lots of examples.

So from the ESL Help Desk, thanks for dropping by for this lesson and remember to email us your questions about English grammar by way of our blog. 

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