English Grammar - The Passive Voice ...and zombies

Today I'm at St. James's Park in London, which is right next to Buckingham Palace

It's all blurry you can't really see it

but trust me that is Buckingham Palace

The passive form: What is it why do we use it?

Hey dude!

What are you doing?

Me? I'm just enjoying the water and the sun!

Oh that's nice! Some water, sun, it's all very relaxing, and...

Whoa! What's happening?!

What? What?

oh man! Something bit me!

Oh mate! That sucks

Ah! What bit you?

I don't know

Is it bleeding bad?

Oh that's pretty bad, huh?

I don't feel good

Ah, that's awful

well let me take your mind off that for a second

In English, what is the structure of a sentence?

What?!

Sentence structure?

oh I I really don't want to talk about grammar

Oh come on! We're doing a lesson!

what do I need?

I don't know, a subject

...and?

A verb

A verb! Good! and what else?

an object

Please get an ambulance or something

Yeah yeah, an ambulance, great idea! I'll phone a helicopter or something!

but first, that sentence!

You said "Something bit me"

what?

yeah I think a shark bit me

Are you sure it was a shark?

Dude! It's the ocean! Sharks bite!

Maybe it was a shark

Maybe it was Nemo

Maybe it was me

so if you don't know the subject

the action is more important

you should use the...?

Why haven't you called an ambulance!?

That's right! The passive form

So "Something bit me" becomes "I was bitten by something"

or just "I was bitten"

So, "something bit me" - That's an active sentence

and it changes to

"I was bitten by something"- A passive sentence

now this happened in the past

so that version of B will be a past tense

"was" or "were"

Well the subject is "I"

So it's not "were"

"was" - "I was"

and that verb will always be in "Verb 3" / The past participle

It doesn't matter if it's a future tense past tense or present tense

that verb is always verb 3, past participle,

so "bite" - it's always "bitten"

"I was bitten"

Be careful and remember that when you use a passive voice

it completely changes the direction of the verb

so let me give you an example:

This sentence is an "Active sentence"

A zombie is biting me

Let's use the same subject but change it to "passive"

now it means this...

Come here zombie!

zombie is being bitten

So be careful, it completely changes who receives the action

so why do we use the passive?

Is it just to sound more formal?

I mean yeah it does sound more formal but that's not the only reason

We already learned one reason

it's because we don't know the subject

"Something bit me" - "I was bitten by something"

Maybe we don't know it, or maybe it's just really really obvious

like this example

You are being arrested

Who by!? haha! ...I'm sorry

in both cases the action is more important

the action is the focus of the sentence

but there is one last reason

and this could be more useful in social situations or political situations

Let's see the passive voice first:

"I acknowledge that mistakes were made here"

and he's right mistakes were made

mistakes were made here

a serious mistake was made

clearly mistakes were made

Hmm interesting! Let's hear the "Active voice"

"I think I made a mistake"

"yeah I take responsibility for it"

and there you have it!

in an active voice you can see the subject taking responsibility for the action

whereas in the passive voice

you can avoid responsibility

so maybe you want to avoid responsibility for an action...

you can use the passive voice

I'm gonna go knock on the Queen's door, and see if she wants to come out and play