Animals
Primary 6 · English
Animals
Lesson 4 of 4
22 min
Let's begin
Keza is reading a book about Rwanda. One sentence says: Mountain gorillas are protected in Volcanoes National Park.
"Who protects them?" asks her little brother. Keza smiles. "The sentence starts with the gorillas, because they are what matters here." That kind of sentence is in the passive voice. Today you will learn how to build it, and when to use it.
This fable is more than two thousand years old. It is told here in the words of The Aesop for Children, a book printed in 1919.
Listen: a free recording is on LibriVox: The Aesop for Children. Choose section 5, read by Janet; this fable is the first one in it.
Words to know: timid (shy and easily frightened), haste (hurry), roused (woken up), spare me (do not kill me), stalking his prey (quietly following an animal to catch it), toils (the ropes of a trap), gnawed (bit again and again).
The Lion and the Mouse
A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.
"Spare me!" begged the poor Mouse. "Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you."
The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.
Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free.
"You laughed when I said I would repay you," said the Mouse. "Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion."
A kindness is never wasted.
Look at this sentence about the story: The mouse gnawed the rope. The doer (the mouse) comes first, then the action (gnawed), then the receiver (the rope). This is the active voice.
Now turn it around: The rope was gnawed by the mouse. The receiver comes first. This is the passive voice. The story uses it too: the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter's net.
A passive verb has two parts: a form of be (is, are, was, were) + the past participle of the main verb.
| Tense | Active | Passive |
|---|---|---|
| present simple | Rangers protect the gorillas. | The gorillas are protected by rangers. |
| past simple | A hunter's net caught the lion. | The lion was caught by a hunter's net. |
| past simple | The villagers saw the elephants. | The elephants were seen by the villagers. |
Worked example
change The mouse freed the lion into the passive.
Step 1 Find the receiver, the lion, and move it to the front.
Step 2 Choose the form of be. Freed is past, and the lion is one animal, so use was.
Step 3 Add the past participle of free: freed.
Step 4 Add by + the doer: by the mouse.
Answer: The lion was freed by the mouse.
Use it when the doer is unknown, obvious or less important than the receiver: Isambaza are caught in Lake Kivu at night. My bicycle was stolen. Here we do not need by at all.
Careful! Was + -ing is NOT the passive. The lion was sleeping is the past continuous: the lion is still the doer. A passive always has the past participle: was caught, were seen. And never write was catch.
Regular verbs add -ed: protect → protected, free → freed, stop → stopped, carry → carried. Irregular verbs have their own forms, and you must learn them:
| Verb | Past simple | Past participle |
|---|---|---|
| see | saw | seen |
| catch | caught | caught |
| eat | ate | eaten |
| bite | bit | bitten |
| take | took | taken |
| hide | hid | hidden |
| feed | fed | fed |
Listen to the ending -ed. It has three sounds: /t/ in helped, watched; /d/ in saved, called; and /id/ in protected, planted, after a t or d sound.
Tip
Flip it, add be, add the third form
Flip the sentence so that the receiver comes first. Add the right form of be. Then use the third form of the verb (see, saw, seen). Quick check: if you see -ing, it is not passive.
Try each one, then check.
Change into the passive: The lion caught the mouse.
Answer: The mouse was caught by the lion.
Give the past participle of eat.
Answer: eaten, as in “The grass was eaten by the zebras.”
Active or passive? The hunter's net was cut by the mouse.
Answer: passive. The receiver (the net) comes first, and the verb is was + cut.
Change into the active: The gorillas were watched by the tourists.
Answer: The tourists watched the gorillas.
How is the -ed in planted pronounced: /t/, /d/ or /id/?
Answer: /id/, as in plant-id, because the verb ends in a t sound.
What you learned today
Sources and credits
Quick check
Which sentence is in the passive voice?
