Grammar: Active and Passive Infinitives

Hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this advanced grammar lesson

on "Active and Passive Infinitives". Now, before this lesson, I really recommend checking

out the previous lesson that I did on the functions of infinitives, just so you're already

familiar with how they work in a sentence, what verbs they can follow, and everything

like that. So, today, we're going to look at active infinitives in which the subject

is doing an action plus an infinitive, and we're also going to look at passive infinitives

where you are receiving the action. Okay?

So, first of all, let's look at the active simple, which is the most basic infinitive

use. And again, an infinitive is "to" plus a base verb. So: "She plans to invite them."

Here, "to invite". After "plan", we always use an infinitive. There's nothing special

going on here. It's just a present, simple sentence.

"Mike's afraid to make mistakes." We know that many adjectives, such as "afraid" can

be followed by an infinitive.

And here we have: "Bermuda is a nice place to spend your vacation." Okay? So, this is

basically the simple use of an infinitive. There's certain verbs that are followed by

infinitives, there are many adjectives that are followed by infinitives, there are many

noun phrases which are also followed by infinitives. And this all plays into the rest of this lesson

as well.

So, here, we have the active past. So if you'd like to talk about an action that a subject

did in the past and you have to use an infinitive, the structure you use is: "to have" plus the

past participle. So, "to have" is actually the infinitive in this sentence. For example:

"You seem to have forgotten your jacket." So, I'm speaking to you in the present, maybe

I'm talking to you on the phone, and you know, you left my party two hours ago, and I say:

"Hey. It looks like you left your jacket." You seem to have forgotten, in the past, your

jacket. And again, "seem" is always followed by an infinitive, so you have to use an infinitive

after it. Past, "to have" plus p.p.

Okay, second sentence says: "I was happy to have finished everything early.", "I was happy

to have finished", so this, you're almost using a past perfect structure because what

you're doing is you're saying the first action is I finished, you know, I finished everything

early, whether it was studying, work, whatever it was. And then I was happy after that. Right?

So this is the first action, and this is the second action. You can say: "I was happy to

finish everything early." That's fine as well. But if you want to focus more on the order

of the action and this, you know, having been completed a little bit earlier, you can do:

"to have" plus the past participle.

All right, let's look at the passive forms. Now, in passive, the subject basically here...

Well, the object, sorry, becomes the focus and it receives the action. Okay? So, in the

passive simple, all you're doing is "to be" plus the past participle. So, the first sentence

says: "They expect to be invited." In general, they expect now to be invited, for example,

to a birthday party, or a wedding, or whatever the occasion is, they expect to be invited

by someone. Passive. They're receiving the action.

Second sentence: "We waited to be given instructions." So here, "to be given" is using a passive

simple structure of an infinitive. Now, what this means is, you know, we waited in class

to be given instructions from the teacher. The teacher is the one doing the action; we

are receiving the action. And as we know, based on the previous lesson on infinitives

and common verbs, "wait" is followed by an infinitive. So you wait to do something. Okay?

And here: "Prepare to be amazed!" This is an... Well, how can I say this? Yes, it's

an imperative. Right? So: "Prepare to be amazed!" whether this is a tagline for a movie or something

like that, they are telling you: "Prepare to be amazed" by something. So, you're going

to receive the action of amazement in this situation.

And finally, let's look at the passive past, which again, just like active and passive

gerunds, active and passive infinitives, this is the longest construction and the one that

is I would say the least frequently used by native English speakers. So: "I'm happy to

have been invited.", "To have been invited". The structure, "to have been", plus the past

participle. I'm happy now because I was invited in the past. So I'm happy. Again, happy is

an adjective. Many adjectives are followed by infinitives. I'm happy to have been invited

in the past.

Okay, and finally: "It was an honour"... "It was an honour", in the past, "to have been

chosen for the award." I was chosen for the award in the past of the past, kind of like

a past perfect construction. "To have been chosen for the award." Okay.

Are you confused? Are you okay? Are you breathing? Okay. Okay. So, if, you know, if you're having

some trouble with this stuff, go back, watch my two lessons on "10 Common Verbs Followed

by Infinitives", watch my lesson on the functions and uses of infinitives which are linked to

this video. After, come back, take a deep breath, take the quiz below and let me know

how you did. And if you have any other suggestions for future videos, please also keep them in

comment section. Once again, this has been Alex. And I'll see you guys next time. Bye.