Hello, all. Neste episódio, falo sobre usos muito comuns e corriqueiros da voz passiva no tempo passado na conversa em inglês de todo dia.
Transcrição
Hello, all. This is the new episode of the Inglesonline podcast. Please subscribe to this podcast using the Podcasts app for iPhone or iPad, or listen to the episodes using the Inglesonline Android app. Thanks for all the comments at the iTunes store and if you haven’t yet left a comment for this podcast please do so: the more comments for the Inglesonline podcast, the more people will find out about it and listen to the episodes. Thanks for telling your friends, your neighbors, your family and keep listening.
So today let’s take a look at these sentences: I was told to look for you. He was paid last week. I was given a phone number during my visit to that office. During our last meeting, it was said that profits are on the rise. What do all these sentences have in common? They use the passive voice, in the simple past.
The passive voice is useful to put the focus on the action, and sometimes on the person or object receiving the action. Notice that we’re not really interested in whoever did that action when we say I was told to look for you. Or It was said that profits are on the rise. Someone told me to look for you… but whoever that was, I don’t think it’s relevant to name that person right now so I’m saying that I was told to look for you. I can’t really remember who said that profits were on the rise during our last meeting, and who said it is not important anyway… So I’m going with It was said that profits are on the rise. This is very similar to what we do in Portuguese: “Disseram que os lucros estão crescendo.” “Me disseram pra eu te procurar.”
This structure is very, very common in everyday speech – particularly those kinds of examples I mentioned. So, obviously, you’ve got to use the past participle of verbs, such as told, paid and given. For this episode, I’m gonna focus on these verbs because they’re so common and I would like to see a lot more English learners using them in past passive form.
So here we go with the examples – and notice that since I’m using the simple past, all examples refer to a specific event in the past. So when I arrived at school, I was told the teacher was ill. And I was also told I should go home. At the theatre, last night, we were told our session had been canceled. When we arrived at the stadium, we were told we needed to show IDs.
My friend was paid two thousand a month in her first job. That man revealed that he was paid to sabotage our equipment. We were paid a lot of money to solve this problem and that’s what we’re going to do. That actress was paid three thousand pounds to promote our company.
How are you doing so far? Can you think of your own examples? Do you have a job? How much were you paid last month? What’s your example for “I was told to do this, I was told to do that” and where and when did that happen?
So let’s keep going: before I left the party, I was given a gift bag. We were given a hotel room that was so dirty we could not sleep in it. As soon as I joined the company, I was given the freedom to make any suggestions I wanted. You were given many opportunities to do the right thing but you failed to take them.
So – can you think of any examples from your life? Please let us know in the comments, and talk to you next time!
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
I was told to keep studying,once I want to work in a hotel and handle with a foreign language.That’s the reason I am always struggling effort to learn more and more. Hugs Ana.
erm.. I was told to listen to the ingles online podcast in order to improve my speaking and listening skills.. I was also invited to get a job abroad a couple weeks ago so that’s what i’m going to do. I personally think my English isn’t that good though.. especially to go overseas lol. Anyway hope it’ll be a fantastic experience:)
Hello! My example is: “I was told to listen to the podcasts of Ann in order to improve the writing and listening English. It has been very profitable for all lovers of English language.” Thanks Ann once more!
I was told to listen to the Inglês Online podcasts. It was said that the podcasts are awesome. Whoever that was, he/she was right. :D Quite helpful as always. Thank you!!!
