| 8.4 Ser for passive voice |
There are more than one possibility in Spanish to form a passive voice. One of them is the one with ser that we'll have a look at now. In chapter 8.8 you'll see the passive voice with estar and in chapter 8.9 you'll see details on passive voice with the reflexive verb.
 |
Durante la
guerra la ciudad fue destruida por completo. |
|
La carta
fue escrita por él. = The letter was written by him. |
|
Estas máquinas
fueron producidas en los Estados Unidos. = These machines were produced in the US. |
This passive voice is formed with
the verb ser and the perfect participle (yes, the one
we already had with the compound tenses). Here there
is a little extra because the perfect participle is
in gender and number identical with the subject. That
means that depending on the subjects gender the participle
gets the same ending. Is the subject a feminine noun
in singular the participle gets an a;
is the subject a masculine noun in plural the participle
gets the ending os.
An overview is given in the table:
| feminine (la ciudad) | masculine (el pueblo) | |
| singular | la ciudad es destruida | el pueblo es destruido |
| plural | las ciudades son destruidas | los pueblos son destruidos |
The passive voice can have all the
tenses that we have already seen. The verb ser
is conjugated in the tense accordingly and the perfect
participle is added (always in accordance with gender
and number!!). Here you have an overview over the possibilities
with the tenses that we have seen with the sentence
You are baptised.
| Formation of the passive voice |
| subject | a form of ser |
+ past participle | ||||
| presente | imperfecto | indefinido | perfecto | pluscuamperfecto | ||
|
|
|||||
| Yo masculine) | soy | era | fui | he sido | había sido | bautizado |
| Yo (feminine) | soy | era | fui | he sido | había sido | bautizada |
| Tú masculine) | eres | eras | fuiste | has sido | habías sido | bautizado |
| Tú (feminine) | eres | eras | fuiste | has sido | habías sido | bautizada |
| Él | es | era | fue | ha sido | había sido | bautizado |
| Ella | es | era | fue | ha sido | había sido | bautizada |
| Nosotros | somos | éramos | fuimos | hemos sido | habíamos sido | bautizados |
| Nosotras | somos | eramos | fuimos | hemos sido | habíamos sido | bautizadas |
| Vosotros | sois | erais | fuisteis | habeis sido | habíais sido | bautizados |
| Vosotras | sois | erais | fuisteis | habeis sido | habíais sido | bautizadas |
| Ellos | son | eran | fueron | han sido | habían sido | bautizados |
| Ellas | son | eran | fueron | han sido | habían sido | bautizadas |
The table shows the theoretical
possibilities but as always, some of the forms are used rather seldom. For instance:
instead of
Vosotros habéis sido bautizados
(You had been baptised.)
a Spaniard would say:
Os han bautizado
(They have baptised
you.)
or
Se
os bautizó(You
were baptised)
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