Simple Present Passive Voice.

The passive voice is not as common as active voice, in our daily conversations we use active voice because we are focused on the person or subject who does the action. But with passive voice the focus is on the object, and not on the person. Let’s analyze some examples:

This wallet is made in Nicaragua.

The book I’m reading is written by Paulo Coelho.

The homework is done.

As we can see in the examples above, the sentences are focused on the object (the wallet, the book, the homework). The subject is not important because is not necessary to know it or it is unknown.

Several mistakes are made every day in this company.

In this clear example we can observe that we are not focused on the subject, it doesn’t matter who makes mistakes, the relevant is that mistakes are made.

Now that we already have an idea about what passive voice is, we can have a look at the grammar structure required to build this formal and polite kind of expressing.

In the same way as we need the past participle to build the perfect tenses, we are also going to need to master the past participle forms to build the passive voice. At simple present passive voice we are going to write the object of the sentence followed by the verb to be, in agreement to the number of the object, a past participle verb and a complement if necessary.

Several mistakes	are	made	every day in this company.
Object.	Verb to be.	past participle verb.	Complement.

Here there are some examples of the difference between active and passive voice.

Active: Homer wrote the Iliad. A drunk driver caused a crashed. Her mom takes them to school. Irresponsible people litter the street every day.

Passive: The Iliad was written by Homer. A crashed was caused by a drunk driver. They are taken to school by her mom. The street is littered every day by irresponsible people.

Los Pronombres Personales.

Un pronombre personal es una palabra que sustituye al nombre, por lo tanto en una oración se utiliza para sustituir al sujeto. Generalmente se emplea cuando el nombre se sobreentiende o ha sido previamente mencionado.

Éstos son los pronombres personales en inglés y su equivalente en español.

I	Yo
You	Tú, vos, usted
He	Él
She	Ella
It	-
We	Nosotros
You	Ustedes
They	Ellos

El pronombre “you”.

Este pronombre se repite dos veces porque además de representar la segunda persona del singular también representa la segunda persona del plural. Pero cómo saber cuándo el que habla se refiere a ti en específico y cuándo a todos ustedes, realmente esto puede ser confuso algunas veces, es por ello que comúnmente se suele hacer uso de palabras después del “you” que ayudan a aclarar que nos estamos refiriendo a todos en conjunto. Esas palabras pueden ser “all” o “guys”. Entonces en una oración podrías escuchar “You all are very friendly” o “You guys are very friendly”, en ambos casos la traducción sería “Ustedes son muy amistosos”.

El pronombre “it”.

Como puede apreciarse en la tabla el pronombre “it” del inglés no tiene traducción en español. Este pronombre también representa a la tercera persona del singular, pero su uso es específicamente para animales u objetos cuando estos sean mencionados de forma singular. En español no necesitamos este pronombre porque en nuestro idioma es más común encontrar oraciones con sujeto tácito, es decir oraciones en las que no se menciona el sujeto.

En español podrías decir:	En inglés tendrías que decir:
Está lloviendo.	It is raining.
El lapicero es tuyo.	The pen is yours.
Es tuyo.	It is yours.
El gato está durmiendo en el sofá.	The cat is sleeping on the sofa.
Está durmiendo en el sofá.	It is sleeping on the sofa.
Los árboles son muy importantes.	Trees are very important.
Son muy importantes.	They are very important.

Vemos que en la primera, tercera, quinta y última oración del español el sujeto no se menciona, es tácito. Sin embargo en inglés necesitamos de un pronombre para representar el sujeto, ese sujeto fue el pronombre “it” en aquellos sujetos que se referían a un animal o cosa en singular, pues al referirse a animales o cosas en plural el pronombre a usarse será “they” tanto para personas como para animales y cosas.

Si bien es cierto que en inglés también suelen formularse las oraciones con sujeto tácito, y aunque su uso sea bastante común en el lenguaje oral, no lo es en la parte escrita, y menos aún en la escritura formal.

Present Participle.

The present participle is a form of a verb, it's not a tense, some students get confused with this because they associate the term with past participle, which is another verb form.

Another way to call the present participle is -ing form, which is usual but it´s not its real name.

What are the uses of present participle?

Present participle is a very commom form in English, we use it to form the progressive tenses, the gerund forms, adjectives and some nouns. Look at the following examples:
 
Mary is waiting for her sister (Present progressive).
I was doing homework when my mom came (Past progressive).
Reading is a nice hobby (Noun).
You are a hardworking person (Adjective).

Rules to form the present participle.

Generally, we just need to add ing at the end of the verb, but sometimes it's necessary to follow some patterns.

1. Double the last consonant to one or two syllable verbs ending in a consonant + vowel + consonant if they have the stress in the last syllable.

 Run - running

Stop - stopping

Swim -  Swimming

2. Omit the vowel "e" at the end and add "ing".

Write - writing.

Practice - practicing.

3. Some verbs don't admit an ing form, for a complete list of these verbs you can go to this site.

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Tag Questions.

We generally use tag questions to confirm an information when we have prior knowledge or idea about the information but we are not sure about it. So when we ask a tag question we are trying to be sure about the information we already know. We ask tag questions to people who have more knowledge or information about the fact we are trying to confirm.

When we say you are thirty, aren’t you? We have a previous idea about the person’s age, but we want to be sure.

Even, in some cases we can be sure about the information, but we want to “ask for agreement” (Prowse, 2008), using the previous example we can say that the person who is asking knows the age, but he/she wants to know if the other person is agree.

There are different kinds of tag questions, look at the following examples:

1.       You are Roger’s sister, aren’t you?

2.       It’s not your birthday, is it?

3.       You speak French, don’t you?

4.       You didn’t come by bus, did you?

As we can see in the examples, tag questions are conformed by a statement (which can be affirmative or negative) and a question. When the statement is affirmative, the question is negative. When the statement is negative, the question is affirmative.

We must be careful with the kind of verb we are using in the statement, remember that some verbs need auxiliaries for making questions or negations, like in the third example where we needed to add the auxiliary verb “don’t” to make the negative form of speak.

Intonation when speaking is also important, when we are sure about the information and we are asking because we want to know if the other person is agree we are going to give a falling intonation.

When we are completely insecure about the fact we are going to give a rising intonation to the tag question.

 

Bibliography

Prowse, J. G. (2008). American Inspiration for teens, 2. Mexico: MACMILLAN.

Have or has?

We use have in the simple present tense when talking about a plural subject or the personal pronouns I, you, we and they.

We use has in the simple present tense when talking about a singular subject, including the personal pronouns he, she and it.

Have with Plural Subjects:

Laura and Steve have a baby.
John and I have an old computer.
Kate and Sara have dinner at seven.  

Have with Personal Pronouns:

I have a new cellphone.
You have a brother.
We have a great idea.

Has with Singular Subjects:

Rose has two sisters.
Ryan has a new friend.  
                                                                                    
Has with Personal Pronouns:

She has a pet cat.
It has a great smell sense.

In negative sentences we use the auxiliary verb don’t or doesn’t, so we don’t write has, no matter if the subject is singular or plural.

Ryan doesn’t have any brother.
They don’t have money to buy a new house.

In questions we use the auxiliary verb do or don’t, so we don’t write has, no matter if the subject is singular or plural.

Does Anna have a new car?
Do you have a pet?

Adverbs of Frequency.

He evaluado recientemente este contenido a mis estudiantes, no deja de emocionar comprobar que algo han aprendido, claro, unos más que otros. Hablar de adverbios de frecuencia significa tratar de esas palabras que van junto al verbo e indican qué tan a menudo se realiza la acción señalada por el verbo en la oración. Cuando decimos por ejemplo que Anna siempre va al cine los fines de semana vemos que la palabra “siempre” indica una frecuencia, o cantidad de veces. Estamos poniendo énfasis en la frecuencia con que Anna hace esta actividad.

Always	Siempre
Almost always	Casi siempre
Often	A menudo
Usually	Usualmente
Sometimes	A veces
Rarely	Raramente
Never	Nunca

En toda oración el adverbio deberá ir antes del verbo, con excepción del verbo “be”, pues en este caso el adverbio irá después del verbo, entonces la estructura para los verbos que no son “be” sería la siguiente:

Sujeto + Adverbio + Verbo + Predicado.

Anna always goes to the movies on weekends.

Estructura para las oraciones con el verbo “be”.

Sujeto + Be + Adverbio + Predicado.

Anna is always late at school.

Es importantísimo señalar que la regla de la tercera persona del presente simple se debe tomar en cuenta al formular una oración usando un adverbio, en el ejemplo de Anna vimos que dice Anna always goes… Acá el verbo que en su forma base es go se convirtió en goes debido a que se le aplica la citada regla de la tercera persona del presente simple.

A veces cuando requieres una información sobre alguien sólo necesitas saber si esa persona realiza o no cierta actividad, pero otras veces ameritas saber con qué frecuencia la realiza, es allí cuando la pregunta que debes hacer es esta:

How often do you…? O How often does…? Recuerda que la forma del verbo auxiliar “do” dependerá directamente de quién sea el sujeto.

Si te preguntan entonces - How often do you go on vacation? - Podrías responder - I sometimes go on vacation in the summer. - How often does Anna go to the movies? – She always goes to the movies on weekends. 

Prepositions of Time.

Las preposiciones de tiempo son a menudo mal utilizadas, incluso por nativos de habla inglesa, en esta entrada trataré de aclarar algunas dudas con respecto al uso de estas preposiciones.

In: Usaremos in cuando nos refiramos a un mes, a un año, a una estación del año o a un periodo de tiempo largo.

I usually go to Canada in December.

The next World Cup will be in 2018.

Sarah always goes to the beach in the summer.

On: Haremos uso de esta preposición cuando nos refiramos a una fecha específica, a un día de la semana o a las expresiones "weekend" que significa fin de semana y "weekdays" que significa días de semana.

Ruben Darío was born on January 18th, 1867.

I like going to the movies on weekends.

Robert always gets up early on weekdays.

My parents don´t like going to the market on Monday.

At: Debemos usar at al referirnos a una hora específica o a las expresiones "noon" "night" y "midnight" que significan medio día, noche y media noche respectivamente.

I do my homewor at 2:00.

I will be back at night.

Don´t forget coming to lunch at noon.

From ... to: Estas preposiciones se usan juntas cuando hablamos del inicio y el final de un evento en la misma oración, puede ser traducido como desde ... hasta.

Hellen sometimes plays chess from 3:00 to 5:00.

After/Before: Estas preposiciones se utilizan cuando nos referimos a lo que ocurre después de algo o antes de algo. Cuando se utiliza un verbo después de ellas éste debe ir en su forma del presente participio, es decir con la terminación ing.

Don´t forget doing your homework after lunch.

Please, try to come before dinner.

I usually read something before going to bed.