Explain how it is done

In A2 #19 the passive was a set of ready-made phrases: is included, was built, I was born. Now it becomes a system. You will be able to put any tense you know into the passive and describe a whole process — how bread is baked, how applications are checked, what was done to a house — without once naming the people who did the work.

The form: be in the right tense + the third form of the verb. The third form never changes; only be carries the tense. So the passive is built in two steps: first decide which tense you need, then put be into that tense and add the third form.

Two words are confused most often: being goes in the continuous tenses (is being repaired — they are repairing it right now), been in the perfect (has been repaired — the repair is already finished).

The negative and the question follow the rules of the tense that be is in. not goes after the first auxiliary verb, and in a question the first auxiliary comes to the front. The passive does not need do: be does its job.

Why English needs the passive. In many languages you can say "here (they) are building a school" or "(they) grow coffee in Brazil" with no subject at all — Spanish aquí construyen una escuela, Italian qui costruiscono una scuola — and everybody understands that some people are doing it. In English a sentence must have a subject. If the doer is unknown or unimportant, the thing becomes the subject and the verb goes into the passive. That is why English uses the passive much more often than many other languages, especially in instructions, notices and the news.

When the passive is chosen.

The doer is unknown: My bike was stolen last night. Nobody knows who stole it.

The doer is unimportant or obvious: The office is cleaned every evening. He was arrested at the airport. It is clear that the police arrested him.

A process or a rule is described: First the flour is weighed, then it is mixed with water. Applications are checked within two weeks. What matters is the steps, not the people.

by — who did it. The doer is named with by only if it is important or new for the listener: This bridge was designed by a famous engineer. Most passive sentences have no by at all.

The passive with two objects. give, send, offer, show, pay have two objects — to whom and what. In the passive the person usually becomes the subject: They gave me a form → I was given a form. A form was given to me is correct too, but it sounds more bookish.

Only a verb with an object has a passive. The passive turns the sentence round: the thing that the action was done to becomes the subject. If the verb has no object, there is nothing to turn round. happen, arrive, die, fall, appear do nothing to anything, and they have no passive: What happened?, not ✗ What was happened? The test is simple: if you can ask "what?" or "whom?" — what did they build, whom did they arrest — the passive is possible. If you can't, it isn't.

Two pairs of verbs show this rule especially clearly. In each pair one verb acts by itself, the other acts on a thing. Only the second one has a passive.

The trap is that lay is both "put down" and the past of "be flat": I lay in bed — "I was in bed". The -ing form of "be flat" is lying, of "put down" — laying.

Compare. The same news about prices sounds different:

Behind the passive there is always an invisible doer, and rise says nothing about a doer.

More examples:

Don't say this. ✗ He rose his hand → ✓ He raised his hand. You lift your hand — the verb has an object, so it is raise.

Check yourself. How do you say They are repairing the road in the passive? Why is Prices were risen impossible, and what is the correct way to say it? A woman went to the sofa and put herself down on it to rest — She lay down or She laid down?