La voce passiva in italiano - Italian passive voice - La construcción pasiva - La forme passive

Exercises and explanation: http://learnamo.com/il-passivo/ If you want to be always updated on new content that we publish day by day, follow us on: Facebook:   / learnamo   Instagram:   / learnamo   Twitter:   / learnamo   Are you ready? Today we are going to study how to form the passive form in Italian! Don’t worry: it is not that difficult, but you must be careful! So, make yourself a coffee (or a tea… or what you want!) and click PLAY! 😆 The PASSIVE voice in Italian What’s the difference between the active and passive form? In the active form the subject carries out the action described by the verb (subject and agent coincide). For example: Maria compra il gelato. [Maria buys the ice cream] (→ Maria is the subject and carries out the action to buy) In the passive form the subject undergoes the action expressed by the verb, which is carried by someone else or something else (subject and agent do not coincide). Example: Il gelato è comprato da Maria. [The ice cream is bought by Maria] How do we turn an active sentence into a passive one? Maria compra il gelato. → Il gelato è comprato da Maria. Paolo ha visto il film. → Il film è stato visto da Paolo. 1) The active sentence direct object becomes the subject in the passive sentence 2) The verb in the passive sentence is made of the verb to be (essere) in the tense and mood of the active sentence + past participle 3) The subject in the active sentence becomes the agent in the passive sentence (introduced by the preposition DA) N.B. There are sentences that cannot be turned into the passive form! The precondition is the presence of a TRANSITIVE VERB, that is a verb that can have a direct object. (Without a direct object we wouldn’t have a subject in the passive form!) Example: Paolo passeggia in centro. [Paolo walks in the city center] ATTENTION! The verb essere in the passive form can be replaces by the verb VENIRE, but only if the tense is not compound. Not compound tenses are those made of one single word (presente, imperfetto, passato remoto, futuro semplice…). Example: Il gelato è comprato da Maria = Il gelato viene comprato da Maria Il gelato è stato comprato da Maria MA Il gelato è venuto comprato da Maria In passive sentences the agent can also be absent! It can be absent when: it’s unknown it’s not relevant it’s implied It’s a generic multitude (le persone, la gente, molte persone…) Example: “Notte stellata” is regarded as Van Gogh’s most famous painting. (Who regards it as such? A generic multitude! So we don’t need to make the agent explicit) SI PASSIVANTE (passivising si) Qui si vende il pane. [Bread is sold here] In this sentence, SI doesn’t mean «sé, se stesso», so it doesn’t have a reflexive function! BUT it has a passivising function. It’s like saying: Qui è venduto il pane. / Qui viene venduto il pane. The passivising SI is only used with the 3 person singular and plural. Of course, if the subject is plural, the verb must agree with the 3 person plural: Qui si vendono le bibite (= Qui sono vendute / vengono vendute le bibite) DO NOT CONFUSE THE PASSIVISING SI WITH THE IMPERSONAL SI! If the verb is intransitive or transitive but without a direct object, the si takes on an impersonal function, but not passivising! The impersonal si is only used with the verb in the 3 singular person and it refers to «people» in general! Example: In questo ristorante si mangia bene [In this restaurant one / people can eat well] → transirive verb without direct object: people in general eat well in this restaurant (it’s not passivising!) Ormai si viaggia sempre più spesso in aereo [Nowdays people increasingly travel by airplane] → intransitive verb: people in general increasigly trevel by airplane (it’s not passivising)