Gareth King - Colloquial English - A Complete English Language Course

2

We were (supposing/wondering) where to go for coffee.

3

I (suppose/wonder) you’re going to the pub, are you?

4

I (suppose/wonder) whose book this is.

5

I (suppose/wonder) Andy may have left already.

6

Kath was (supposing/wondering) what to do tomorrow.

7

I (suppose/wonder) if Gerry could come along as well.

8

I (suppose/wonder) Gerry could come along as well.

Dialogue 4

Abigail is reading a dramatic news item from the local paper to Gary.

ABIGAIL:

Listen to this, Gary:

‘Two men were arrested last night after a car was stolen in the town centre. Police said that the car, a blue Audi, was driven through the town at high speed, but was stopped by a roadblock just outside the supermarket.

The two men have been named as Bert Shift and Ernie Dodge. They will be charged tomorrow with theft and dangerous driving, and are expected to appear in court on Monday. Their families have been informed, and a press conference will be held at ten o’clock tomorrow.

GARY:

Wow!

Language point 90 – passive

The PASSIVE is not used much in colloquial English, but you will hear it quite often on the TV and radio news, and see it in newspapers and books.

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Look at these two sentences:

ACTIVE

The dog bit the postman

PASSIVE

The postman was bitten by the dog

They mean the same thing. The OBJECT of the ACTIVE sentence ( the postman) becomes the SUBJECT of the PASSIVE sentence, and the verb is changed. We use byto show who or what did the action in a passive sentence.

The passive is formed of two parts:

be

+

PAST PARTICIPLE

So, if you can use bein all tenses, and you’re happy with the past participle (go back and look at Language point 53 again if you’re not), then you can easily use the passive. Here are some examples: PRESENT SIMPLE

Dinner is served at eight o’clock

PRESENT CONTINUOUS

The game is being played under floodlights

FUTURE

A prize will be awarded

PAST SIMPLE

This book was written in 1948

PAST CONTINUOUS

Ice creams were being sold on the seafront

PRESENT PERFECT

Your car has been stolen

PAST PERFECT

The money had been hidden in the garden

To make passive statements into questions, we simply put the first verb at the start of the sentence, and leave everything else unchanged:

Was this book written in 1948?

Has your car been stolen?

Were ice creams being sold on the seafront?

Is dinner served at eight o’clock?

And negatives simply add not/ n’tto the first verb :

+

–

is served

isn’t served

is being played

isn’t being played

had been hidden

hadn’t been hidden

will be awarded

won’t be awarded

(remember will not→ won’t)

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You won’t need to use the passive much when speaking in normal situations, but it’s important to know about it and recognise it when you come across it.

Exercise 9

Rewrite these active sentences as passives. The first one is done for you.

1 The cat chases the mouse.

The mouse is chased by the cat.

2 The employers pay the workers. _____________________ .

3 Does Sarah feed the chickens?

_____________________ ?

4 The postman delivered the

letters.

_____________________ .

5 James has broken this chair.

_____________________ .

6 The organisers will cancel the

concert.

_____________________ .

7 Su made the tea.

_____________________ .

8 Rich people drive big cars.

_____________________ .

9 Henry’d do the gardening.

_____________________ .

10 Authors write books.

_____________________ .

Exercise 10

Complete these sentences using the future or past passive – the first one has been done for you.

1 Send the letters.

They’ll be senttomorrow.

2 Pay the hotel bill.

____________ yesterday.

3 Book the holiday.

____________ last week.

4 Do the shopping.

____________ tomorrow.

5 Take the rubbish out.

____________ yesterday.

6 Throw the old papers out.

____________ yesterday.

7 Recycle the milk bottles.

____________ yesterday.

8 Buy the Christmas tree.

____________ tomorrow.

9 Fill the car up.

____________ tomorrow.

10 Eat the food!

____________ yesterday.

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Exercise 11

See if you can find all the passives in the newspaper articles below.

The first is from a tabloid and the second is from a broadsheet.

Which one has more?

© Guardian

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Life and living – reading

With this unit we’ve come to the end of the book – and you’ll want to build on what you’ve learnt and practised. One good way to independently and effectively improve your English (and especially to expandyour vocabulary) is to read – and there’s plenty to read wherever you look.

If you go to a newsagent’s(like the one Damian went to in Unit 6) you’ll find a wide rangeof newspapers (or papers, as we often call them). Dailypapers come in two formats: some, such as The Times , the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph , are broadsheets –

large-format papers with quite serious styleand content, and with very wide and deep coverageof both home news and international news. If you want to read everything in a broadsheet, you’ll need quite a bit of time. Other papers, such as the Mirror , the Daily Mail and the Express , are tabloids – smaller-format papers with less serious, more popular style and language, and covering news in rather less depth. They have more pictures as well, and they sell more than the broadsheets. These days one or two of the broadsheets are also available as tabloids – same content, but smaller pages and more of them. You can also buy Sunday papers, such as the Observer , The Sunday Times , the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph . They are bigger than the dailies, and they come in several sections, for example Review, Travel, Finance, Food and Sport. If you’re a busy person with lots to do apart fromreading, a Sunday paper can lastyou most of the week!

Or why not visit a bookshop and buy a book to read? Every large town has a fair-sizedbookshop, with thousands of titles arranged by categoryor genre. Fictionis always a very large section, and it’s a good place for learners of English to start. You’ll find the fiction books grouped under different types, for example modern fiction (general modern novels), historical fiction (stories set in the past), science fiction (stories set in the future) and horror (ghosts, blood and axe-murderers) – pick something you like the look of and get reading!