2.3 This song is performed very often.

Icono IDevice Listening activity

Paco goes on reading the newspaper, but it seems there is not any good news. After a short break thinking, he has made some decisions. On the one hand, he will not visit any other place in Africa except one to have a good time. A possibility could be to travel to Kenya, where he could go on a safari and enjoy himself a lot, as he loves wild animals. On the other hand, he has decided to enjoy some music, so, he turns on the radio. After an hour, he realizes that a song he had never listened to before has been broadcast at least three times. Undoubtedly, people in Sierra Leona like this song because it is asked to be broadcast quite frequently. The song is performed on the radio pretty often, he thinks.


Listen to the song and try to guess a sentence in the passive voice.


In the song, there is one only sentence in the passive voice: I've been told leaving you is the right thing to do. The singer uses the passive voice here because the doer of the action, that is, the person or people who said that to her is/are not important at all. The important thing is that she has received that information.

This is one of the main reasons why the passive voice is used. However, we use the passive voice in English for other reasons. Do you want to know them? Click the picture below!

Icono IDevice Further knowledge

Obviously, there are some other uses of the passive voice. However, the ones above are the main ones and the ones you should know. If you want to learn more about the uses of the passive voice, click here. It is quite useful to improve your knowledge of the topic!

Now, click here to do an amusing exercise on the passive voice.


Icono IDevice Important

On some occasions, the verb to get may replace the verb to be in the passive voice. It is quite common especially in American English! Watch the video on the right to understand it!




Taking that into account, then, the sentence Andrés's tennis racket was broken could also be said Andrés's tennis racket got broken.


Icono de iDevice Self-Assessment
Transform the following sentences into the active or the passive voice. Pay attention to the by-agent!
By allerleirau. C. Commons

1. The singer perfoms the song very often.

.

2. The diamond mine was visited by Paco yesterday.

.

3. People usually buy newspapers at weekends.

.

4. The General Committee has already pass the bill.

.

5. Did Sonia give Paco a present before he left for England?

before he left for England?

  

There are some other frequent structures in English which are quite similar to the passive voice. We are referring to the causative use of have and the meaning of need + gerund. Let's have a look at them in the following section!
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