Session 9, Friday April 20th 2012

This class was dedicated to two grammar topics: the passive voice, and reported or indirect speech. We also worked on writing/speaking skills relating to presenting opinions and arguments. 

None of these topics was on the end of course test (which we did on Saturday). However, they are all very important for the PET (which you will take later in the year). 

Passive Voice

The passive voice is a different way to construct sentences. First, let´s look at a normal, typical sentence:

Gugliermo Marconi invented the radio in 1895.

In this sentence, Marconi is the subject. He is the person who does the action. 

Invented is the verb. It is the action.

The radio is the object. It is the thing that he invented.

This construction is called the active voice. It is the most common way construct a sentence in English.

However, if you are writing a report about important inventions, you might consider the radio to be more important than Gugliermo Marconi. You could show this by changing the construction of the sentence:

The radio was invented by Gugliermo Marconi in 1895.

We have all the same things in the sentence, but this time we put the object at the beginning, which puts more emphasis on it. 

The radio was invented in 1895.

This is also useful if we don't know the subject...an active sentence must have a subject, but in a passive sentence it is optional. 


In a passive sentence, the verb is be+past partciple


Passive sentences can be in any tense: only the verb be changes.


The radio was invented in 1895.
Wine is produced in Chile.
Wine has been produced in Chile for many years. 
The project is being done by John and Steven.
The project will be finished in September.

Try an exercise to practice.

Reported Speech

When we want to describe a conversation, we sometimes have to report exactly what somebody says. We do this using speech marks: "...."

He said "the name's Bond...James Bond."

In this way, we repeat exactly what the person says. 

But sometimes, we want to report what they said, without repeating it exactly. Here are the examples that we looked at in class. 

He said that his name was James Bond. 

Don Corleone asked if he spent time with his family. 

Then he said that a man who didn´t spend time with his family could never be a real man. 

              

 He said that he would be back

• Notice how the tense changes when we report speech:

"The name is Bond" > He said his name was Bond. 
(Present Simple-Past Simple)


"A man who doesn´t spend time with his family can never be a real man" >  He said that a man who didn´t spend time with his family could never be a real man. 
(Present Simple-Past Simple, Can-Could)


"I´ll be back" > He said he would be back 
(Future Will-Conditional Would)

• Sentence structure also changes when we report questions:

"Do you spend time with your family?" > He asked if he spent time with his family


Notice how the question form (auxilliary-subject-verb) is not necessary in reported speech. We use the standard sentence construction (subject-verb). 

• There are some changes in the words we use:

"Bananas are my favourite fruit" > He said that bananas were his favourite fruit.


When we ask a yes or no question, we use "if" in reported speech. This is not necessary with more general questions.  


"Do you like it?" > She asked if I liked it 
"Where do you work?" > She asked where I worked. 


You can find the full list of tense and structure changes on page 142 of your book (9b) or here (with translations).




Try an exercise (with sentences)
Try an exercise (with questions)