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Passive voice (2)

hirashin

Sempai
Donor
8 Apr 2004
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Hello, native English speakers,
Would you check my sentences in the passive voice again?
1 This desk was made by my father last year.
2 These books were written by Hemingway.
3 This room is used by students.
4 A lot of people were invited to the party yesterday.
5 Those workers are paid two hundred thousand yen a month.
6 This store/shop was built about fifty years ago.
7 We were invited to the party yesterday.
8 This book is read by many Japanese.
9a In this country, English and Spanish are spoken.
9b English and Spanish are spoken in this country.
10 This letter was written by a famous writer.
11 That boy is given ten thousand yen a week.
12 Are these computers used by students? Yes, they are.
13 Was this bike made in Germany? Yes, it was.

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin
 
Last edited:
Hello, native English speakers,
Would you check my sentences in the passive voice again?
1 This desk was made by my father last year.
2 These books were written by Hemingway.
3 This room is used by students.
4 A lot of people were invited to the party yesterday.
5 Those workers are paid two hundred thousand yen a month.
6 This store/shop was built about fifty years ago.
7 We were invited to the party yesterday.
8 This book is read by many Japanese.
9a In this country, English and Spanish are spoken.
9b English and Spanish are spoken in this country.
10 This letter was written by a famous writer.
11 That boy is given ten thousand yen a week.
12 Are these computers used by students? Yes, they are.
13 Was this bike made in Germany? Yes, it was.

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin

8. " ...many Japanese people" I think is more natural.
A bit of food for thought for you - Nos. 4 and 7, was the party yesterday or was the invitation made yesterday?
Apart from that, no problems.
 
Thank you for the help, Lothor.
A bit of food for thought for you - Nos. 4 and 7, was the party yesterday or was the invitation made yesterday?
Apart from that, no problems.
Ahh...OK. Those sentences have ambiguity, don't they? How would you avoid the ambiguity?
 
Here's a way to clarify each and keep the passive voice.

People were invited to party yesterday: Yesterday, a lot of people were invited to the party this Sunday.
Party happened yesterday: A lot of people were invited to the party that happened yesterday.
 
I think more people would say '..were invited to yesterday's party', but that might be another of those British/American things.
 
Reading that I would likely said it that way too. I just thought of two examples to clarify each way and that's what I ended up with.
 
I've heard that if you can insert "by zombies" after the verb and it still makes sense, it's passive voice.

So:
4 A lot of people were invited to the party yesterday.

Becomes:
A lot of people were invited by zombies to the party yesterday.
 
Thanks for the interesting information, LunaDragon. Who did you teach that?
 
I'd say #4 is clear about the fact that the party was yesterday because the word "yesterday" comes after the word "party".
Otherwise I'd use "A lot of people were invited yesterday to the party" or even "Yesterday a lot of people were invited to the party."
Lothor's sentence using "... yesterday's party" is of course the best. :)
 
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