Past Passive – English Grammar Lesson

A2–B1Passive VoiceMarch 15, 2026

Transcript

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hello guys so today we are going to look

at the past simple passive form so we

have looked at the present simple past

and the present continuous passive never

went to try the structure in the past

let's look at a sentence so for example

Shakespeare subject who we all have

heard of before Shakespeare wrote

Hamlet's in 1603 I am NOT a history

teacher but I think that is correct

Shakespeare moves Hamlet in 1603 who is

the subject and who is the object of

this sentence yes you are correct

Shakespeare is the subject of the

sentence and Hamlet his famous play is

the is the object of this sentence as we

did with the present passive we can

change the focus of the attention of our

sentence from the subject to the object

making the object of the active sentence

the new subject in the passive sentence

how do we did Hamlet becomes our new

subject

Hamlet's bear to be in the past form in

this example would be was Hamlet was and

remember with passive forms we are

always using the past participle Hamlet

was written and then similar as to with

the present passive forms

we conclude the agent of the action

using by so we would say by Shakespeare

in 1603 everybody knows that Shakespeare

rule tablet or at least it should so why

not shift the attention from Shakespeare

or to Hamlet give Hamlet some of the

focus of the attention and use the

passive form now in the past simple

passive as you can see our formula as

aware is we have the bear to be as

always at this time in its past form and

then past participle that's our little

formula that you need to remember to

form past

passive sentence using simple form I

always see the bear to be is like

plasticine when we use it in the passive

form it can change its form you know you

can mold the verb to be according to the

neat that the vert has to fulfill to

change with I'm not particularly

possible for I hope this has been useful

for you and other videos we're going to

look at some other passive forms as well

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About this lesson

Learn how to form and use the past passive voice in English.

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