Passive Voice, Past Tense

To make the past tense passive, use "was" or "were," depending on the subject, and then add the past participle.

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Education

Tags:

• ESL

[claytonfabianmarinho]

Teacher,

In the case: "We were told not to eat the tomatoes". Can we use "to not eat" rather than "not to eat"?

[learnamericanenglish]

@claytonfabianmarinho -- The reason you shouldn't do that is because it splits the infinitive. Many Americans do this, but it's better not to.

"We were told not to eat the tomatoes." The infinitive is "to eat." If you put "not" between "to" and "eat," you split (divide) the infinitive.

[learnamericanenglish]

You're welcome. I'm very glad it helped you with your report. Paul

[Mentalii11]

I didn't know this tense, really interesting :)

And, I've a little question. For example, in the sentence "She was given a new job at work", the question would be "Was she given a new job at work?", wouldn't it?

[thekikker1996]

pretty nice explained;) I have to learn this for english by my next test on monday;) ( I'm from the Netherlands)

[RogueBryce]

I'm from the U.S. and used this video to write my Biology lab report in the correct tense. Thank you a lot!