{"id":9808,"date":"2022-04-21T08:41:33","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T08:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/?p=9808"},"modified":"2022-05-03T09:35:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T09:35:27","slug":"the-passive-voice-in-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/the-passive-voice-in-french\/","title":{"rendered":"The passive voice in French"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this article, we review the <strong>passive voice in French<\/strong>. The passive voice indicates that the verb acts on the subject.<\/p>\n<div class=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 2rem; margin-top: 2rem; background: #F4F4F4;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-weight: 600; margin-bottom: 0px; color: #fff; background: #FF6868;\">\u00cdNDICE DE CONTENIDOS<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#how\">How is the passive voice constructed?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#of\">Composition of the passive voice<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#voice\">Passive voice and verb tenses<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#examples\">Examples<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#the\">Conjugation of the passive form<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Shift the emphasis on the person or thing being acted upon (the subject), rather than the person or thing performing that action (the agent). Therefore, the agent can be omitted because it is less important.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"how\">How is the passive voice constructed?<\/h2>\n<p>The active voice is when\u00a0<strong>the subject of the sentence performs the action:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Je mange la tarte (&#8220;Je&#8221; is the subject and eats the cake, so he does the action).<\/p>\n<p>The passive voice is when\u00a0<strong>the subject is not performing the action:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>La tarte est mang\u00e9e par moi (\u201cla tarte\u201d is the theme, but the action is performed by \u201cmoi\u201d).<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"of\">Composition of the passive voice<\/h2>\n<p>The passive voice\u00a0<strong>needs the verb &#8220;to be&#8221;<\/strong>\u00a0(\u00eatre) as an auxiliary and the past participle of the verb.<\/p>\n<p>La tarte est mang\u00e9e: <strong>est + past participle<\/strong> of a manger (agrees with the subject of the sentence, here &#8220;tarte&#8221; which is feminine).<\/p>\n<p>To obtain the passive voice,\u00a0<strong>the verb must be transitive (with a direct object)<\/strong>.\u00a0However, some verbs in French do not have a passive form:\u00a0co\u00fbter, valoir, pouvoir &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>When possible, we prefer to find another form in French, since\u00a0<strong>the passive voice is often inelegant or heavy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For example, instead of saying:\u00a0cet article a \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9crit par lui\u00a0(this article was written by him), we prefer to say:\u00a0c&#8217;est lui qui a \u00e9crit cet article!<\/li>\n<li>Or &#8216;They were beaten&#8217;, instead of \u201c ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 frapp\u00e9s \u201d, we prefer the neuter pronoun \u201con\u201d: on les a frapp\u00e9s.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Alcohol is not sold here&#8221;:\u00a0en ne vend pas d&#8217;alcool ici\u00a0(instead of l&#8217;alcool n&#8217;est pas vendu ici).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most verbs\u00a0<strong>need the preposition \u201cpar\u201d, but some use \u201cde\u201d,<\/strong> verbs related to the description: bord\u00e9\u2026 de, couvert\u2026 de, d\u00e9cor\u00e9\u2026 de, suivi\u2026 de, related to feelings: aim\u00e9\u2026 de, d\u00e9test\u00e9\u2026 de, appr\u00e9c\u00ed\u2026 de, ha\u00ef\u2026 de (but we can also say aim\u00e9\u2026 par).<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"voice\">Passive voice and verb tenses<\/h2>\n<h3>Present time:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Pierre lit le livrec \/ Le livre est lu par Pierre \/ Pierre reads the book \/ The book is read by Pierre.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We accept the passive voice here because Pierre is a noun,\u00a0<strong>but with pronouns like moi, toi, lui, elle, etc.\u00a0we prefer:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Je lis le livre Le livre est lu par moi is not elegant.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I read the book \/ The book I read is not elegant, so we say: <em>c&#8217;est moi qui lis le livre<\/em>\u00a0. I am the one who reads the book.<\/p>\n<h3>Imperfect<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Pierre lisait le livre Le livre \u00e9tait lu par Pierre.<br \/>\nPierre read the book The book was read by Pierre.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>C&#8217;est moi qui avait lu le le.<br \/>\nI was the one who read the book.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Pass\u00e9 Compos\u00e9<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Pierre a lu le livre\u00a0 Le livre a \u00e9t\u00e9 lu par Pierre.<br \/>\nPeter read the book Peter read the book.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>C&#8217;est moi qui ai lu livre you.<br \/>\nI read the book.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Future<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Pierre lira le livre Le livre will be lu par Pierre.<br \/>\nPierre will read the book The book will be read by Pierre.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>C&#8217;est moi qui lirai le livre.<br \/>\nI will be reading the book.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"examples\">Examples<\/h2>\n<p>People have to be warned,\u00a0<strong>the passive voice in French is<\/strong>\u00a0: Les gens doivent \u00eatre avertis, but we prefer: on doit avertir tout le monde!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This book was written 2 centuries ago:\u00a0Le livre a \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9crit il ya deux si\u00e8cles\u00a0, but better:\u00a0on a \u00e9crit ce livre il ya deux si\u00e8cles.<\/li>\n<li>Dogs are not allowed:\u00a0Les chiens ne sont pas admis\u00a0, but better:\u00a0On n&#8217;accepte pas les chiens!<\/li>\n<li>Smoking is prohibited:\u00a0Fumer est Interdit, but better:\u00a0Interdiction de Fumer or Il est interdit de fumer.<\/li>\n<li>They told me &#8230;:\u00a0J&#8217;ai \u00e9t\u00e9 dit\u00a0is not correct, we say:\u00a0on m&#8217;a dit\u00a0&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"the\">Conjugation of the passive form<\/h2>\n<h3>Changes in the verb of the sentence<\/h3>\n<p>The conjugation of a verb in the passive voice\u00a0<strong>is constructed with the auxiliary being<\/strong>\u00a0(conjugu\u00e9 au m\u00eame temps que le verbe de la voix active) (conjugated at the same time as the verb in the active voice) and the past participle of the verb of the sentence to the active voice.<\/p>\n<p>Examples:<\/p>\n<table style=\"height: 233px;\" width=\"718\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>&#8211;<\/th>\n<th>Active voice<\/th>\n<th>Passive voice<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Pr\u00e9sent<\/td>\n<td>Marie mange une pomme<\/td>\n<td>Une pomme est mang\u00e9 par Marie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Futur<\/td>\n<td>Marie mangera une pomme<\/td>\n<td>Una pomme sera mang\u00e9e par Marie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Pass\u00e9 simple<\/td>\n<td>Marie mangea une pomme<\/td>\n<td>Une pomme fut mang\u00e9e par Marie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Pass\u00e9 compos\u00e9<\/td>\n<td>Marie a mang\u00e9 une pomme<\/td>\n<td>Une pomme a \u00e9t\u00e9 mang\u00e9e par Marie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Imparfait<\/td>\n<td>Marie mangeait une pomme<\/td>\n<td>Une pomme \u00e9tait mang\u00e9e par Marie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Plus-que-parfait<\/td>\n<td>Marie avait mang\u00e9 une pomme<\/td>\n<td>Une pomme avait \u00e9t\u00e9 mang\u00e9e par Marie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Futur<\/td>\n<td>Marie mangera une pomme<\/td>\n<td>Una pomme sera mang\u00e9e par Marie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>To transform a sentence into a passive voice, it must contain a COD<\/strong>.\u00a0Example<em>:<\/em> Les enfants jouaient sur le terrain de foot\u00a0(The children played on the soccer field) =&gt; there is no COD, passive transformation is impossible.<\/p>\n<p>The perpetrator should not be a <strong>personal pronoun<\/strong>\u00a0(\u00a0<em>Je Tu Il Elle, nous, vous, ils, elles)<\/em>\u00a0(I, you, he, she, we, you, they, they) Example:\u00a0Elle regarde la t\u00e9l\u00e9vision\u00a0She is watching television.\u00a0=&gt; the subject is a personal pronoun, transformation is impossible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The transformation is possible with the personal pronoun ON<\/strong>, but in this case, the passive voice sentence has no agent complement. Example\u00a0<em>:<\/em> On annonce la nouvelle.\u00a0=&gt; La nouvelle est annonc\u00e9e par on.\u00a0We announce the news.\u00a0=&gt; The news is announced by him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The preposition even is used to introduce<\/strong> the agent&#8217;s complement in most cases.\u00a0Example: Cette le\u00e7on est \u00e9tudi\u00e9e par les \u00e9l\u00e8ves de CM1.\u00a0This lesson is studied by the students of CM1.<\/p>\n<p>We use the preposition of to introduce the complement of an agent with the <strong>verbs of feeling<\/strong>.\u00a0Example:\u00a0Elle est aim\u00e9e de tout son entourage. Everyone around her loves her.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"kk-star-ratings kksr-auto kksr-align-left kksr-valign-bottom\"\n    data-payload='{&quot;align&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;9808&quot;,&quot;slug&quot;:&quot;default&quot;,&quot;valign&quot;:&quot;bottom&quot;,&quot;ignore&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;reference&quot;:&quot;auto&quot;,&quot;class&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;count&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;legendonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;readonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;score&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;starsonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;best&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;gap&quot;:&quot;4&quot;,&quot;greet&quot;:&quot;\u00a1D\u00e9janos unas estrellitas si te ha gustado el post!&quot;,&quot;legend&quot;:&quot;0\\\/5 - (0 votes)&quot;,&quot;size&quot;:&quot;24&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;The passive voice in French&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;_legend&quot;:&quot;{score}\\\/{best} - ({count} {votes})&quot;,&quot;font_factor&quot;:&quot;1.25&quot;}'>\n            \n<div class=\"kksr-stars\">\n    \n<div class=\"kksr-stars-inactive\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"1\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"2\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"3\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"4\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"5\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n<div class=\"kksr-stars-active\" style=\"width: 0px;\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n                \n\n<div class=\"kksr-legend\" style=\"font-size: 19.2px;\">\n            <span class=\"kksr-muted\">\u00a1D\u00e9janos unas estrellitas si te ha gustado el post!<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this article, we review the passive voice in French. The passive voice indicates that the verb acts on the&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2637,"featured_media":14903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8092,8093,8108,8239,8130,8125],"tags":[8223,8240,8232,8222],"class_list":["post-9808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-level-b1-levels","category-level-b2-levels","category-grammar","category-learn-french","category-learn-language","category-vocabulary","tag-grammar","tag-learn-french","tag-learn-language","tag-vocabulary","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9808"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14702,"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808\/revisions\/14702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elblogdeidiomas.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}