Running a Business
Senior 3 · English
Running a Business
Lesson 3 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
Businesses describe processes, products and plans. In those descriptions the thing being made or sold usually matters more than the person doing the work, so English uses the passive: the bread is baked, the oven was built, a new shop will be opened. In S1 you used the present simple passive to describe a process. Here you use the passive in all three simple tenses, in negatives and questions, and you learn when to name the doer.
A description of the bakery in lesson 1. The details are imagined.
Every night at the bakery, the day's bread is prepared while the town sleeps. The flour is sifted, and the dough is mixed and shaped by hand. At four o'clock the oven is lit. By six, the loaves are packed in clean crates and loaded onto a motorbike, and they are delivered to the two schools before the first lesson. The bread is not sold on credit to anyone else. At the end of each month, an invoice is sent to each school.
The bakery was not always like this. The first oven was built three years ago by a mason from the next village, and it was paid for with two years of savings. In those days the bread was baked in small batches, and many loaves were sold on credit and never paid for.
Next year things will change again. A second oven will be installed, and two more bakers will be employed. If all goes well, bread will be supplied to a third school.
Check: (1) When is the oven lit? (2) Who built the first oven? (3) What will be installed next year?
(1) At four o'clock. (2) A mason from the next village. (3) A second oven.
Definition
active voice: the subject does the action. A mason built the oven.
passive voice: the subject receives the action. Form: be (in the right tense) + past participle. The oven was built by a mason.
agent: the doer of the action in a passive sentence, introduced by by. … by a mason.
| Tense | Active | Passive: be + past participle |
|---|---|---|
| Present simple | The bakers mix the dough by hand. | The dough is mixed by hand. · The loaves are packed in crates. |
| Past simple | A mason built the oven. | The oven was built by a mason. · Many loaves were sold on credit. |
| Future simple | They will install a second oven. | A second oven will be installed. |
| Tense | Negative | Question |
|---|---|---|
| Present simple | The bread is not (isn't) sold on credit. | Is the dough mixed by hand? |
| Past simple | The loaves were not (weren't) paid for. | When was the oven built? |
| Future simple | The price will not (won't) be changed. | Will a third school be supplied? |
| Verb | Past participle | Verb | Past participle |
|---|---|---|---|
| build | built | sell | sold |
| buy | bought | send | sent |
| bring | brought | pay | paid |
| make | made | write | written |
| take | taken | choose | chosen |
| give | given | steal | stolen |
Worked example
Active to passive, step by step
Change: The wholesaler delivered ten sacks yesterday.
Worked example
Writing a formal business notice
Sandrine's draft notice says: "We don't sell bread on credit. We will change prices only after we tell customers. Someone stole our crates last week, so we lock them up now."
The notice now sounds firm and impersonal; it states rules, not personal feelings.
Worked example
A verb with two objects
Active: The bakery sends each school an invoice. The verb send has two objects, each school and an invoice, so either can become the subject:
The same works with give, show, offer, pay: The workers are paid on Friday. · A discount was offered to Sandrine.
Tip
BE does the time, V3 does the meaning. In every passive, the tense lives in be (is, was, will be) and the meaning lives in the past participle (the third form, V3), which never changes.
Warning
Present and past passives, 6 Minute Grammar, from BBC Learning English (about 6 minutes). Note one example of each tense from the programme, then say whether its agent is named and why.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa.
