4.20 The passive and how French avoids it — Epoché
What you will be able to do Build the French passive with être and a past participle that agrees with the subject, in any tense. Introduce the agent with par , and with de after verbs of feeling and knowing. Say the same thing the way French usually prefers: with on , with a reflexive verb, or with se faire and an infinitive. Translate the English passive of an indirect object, I was given a ticket , which French cannot form at all. Recognise that French uses the passive much less than English, and choose the active when in doubt. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English Vous ne pouvez pas annuler la réunion. [1] You can't cancel the meeting. Je voudrais annuler mon rendez-vous de demain. [2] I'd like to cancel my appointment for tomorrow. Pouvons-nous reporter la réunion à demain ? [3] Can we postpone the meeting until tomorrow? Elle a annulé un rendez-vous. [4] She cancelled an appointment. Vous pouvez rentrer à la maison. [5] You may go home. Je ne veux tout simplement pas être à nouveau déçu. [6] I just don't want to be disappointed again. Je suis content que vous m'ayez invité à la fête. [7] I'm glad you invited me to your party. Je ne veux pas vous voir être déçu, un point c'est tout. [8] I just don't want to see you get disappointed. Prerequisites : 4.19 — this lesson follows 4.19 Grammar in the order of the course. For the forms you need the agreement of the past participle with être from 3.9 Conjugation , the pronoun on from the first phase, and the reflexive verbs from 4.12 Grammar . The French passive is built exactly like the English one: the verb meaning to be , then a past participle. La maison a été vendue is the house has been sold , word for word. If French used it as often as English does, this would be a very short lesson. It does not. English uses the passive constantly, in speech and writing, whenever the doer of an action is unknown, obvious or unimportant. French has three other ways of leaving out the doer, and in everyday speech it uses them far more often than the passive. A French speaker who says on m'a volé is doing what an English speaker does with I've been robbed . Most of this lesson is about those three alternatives, and about the one English passive that French simply cannot build. How English does it English and French build the passive the same way. Was invited , a été invité ; will be punished , sera puni . The tense is carried by the auxiliary, and the participle follows. The French participle agrees with the subject in gender and number: elle a été invitée . English uses the passive far more. In English the passive is the normal way to avoid naming the doer. In French that job is done mostly by on , which you met as we in speech and which also means someone or people . English is spoken here is most naturally ici, on parle anglais . English can make the receiver of a gift or a message the subject; French cannot. I was given a ticket. I was told to go home. I was asked my opinion. In French, in practice, only a direct object can become the subject of a passive, and the person who receives something is an indirect object. French therefore says on m'a donné ce ticket , someone gave me this ticket . This is the single most important rule in the lesson. English get passives are often se faire in French. She got arrested , he got fired : the subject suffers something, often through bad luck or carelessness. French says elle s'est fait arrêter , il s'est fait virer , literally she made herself be arrested . English this book sells well is a reflexive verb in French. English sometimes uses an active verb with a passive sense: it sells , it reads easily . French does this with a reflexive verb: ça se vend bien . The same construction gives general rules: ça ne se fait pas , that isn't done . The passive itself French English Le vol a été annulé. [9] The flight was cancelled. La maison a été vendue. [10] The house has been sold. La fête a été reportée. [11] The party has been postponed. Elle a été invitée. [12] She was invited. Il a été élu président. [13] He was elected president. La ville a été fondée en 573. [14] The city was founded in 573. Il sera puni. [15] He will be punished. S'il pleut demain, l'excursion sera annulée. [16] If it rains tomorrow, the excursion will be canceled. The first six are in the perfect: a été , the perfect of être , and a participle. Notice the agreement: annulé for le vol , vendue for la maison , reportée for la fête , invitée for elle . The participle of été itself never changes. The last two are in the future, sera , and the agreement works the same way. These are exactly the sentences where French does like the passive: cancellations, sales, elections, foundations, punishments. The thing that happened matters, and the doer is an institution or nobody in particular. Notice too that the news-like character of these sentences matches where you will read the passive most: newspapers and official notices. The agent: par and de French English A-t-il été écrit par vous ? [17] Was it written by you? Elle a été élevée par lui. [18] She was brought up by him. J'ai été émue par ce film. [19] I was touched by this movie. Il s'est fait mordre par un serpent. [20] He was bitten by a snake. Il est aimé de tous. [21] He is liked by everybody. Il est connu de tous. [22] He is known to everybody. The doer of the action is introduced by par , English by . After verbs of feeling and knowing that describe a lasting state, such as aimer , connaître and respecter , French uses de instead: il est aimé de tous , he is loved by everyone . The English glosses vary between by and to , which shows that English has its own small irregularities here. The fourth sentence, il s'est fait mordre par un serpent , is not an ordinary passive but the construction with se faire , below. It too takes par for the agent. The first alternative: on French English Ici, on parle anglais. [23