Since we\u2019ve been talking about past participles a lot lately (fortunately, we are done with them now, because I was getting bored. And if I\u2019m getting bored, you must be fast asleep at the computer by now), getting started on the passive voice might be a good idea as well.<\/p>\n
But first things first. What is the passive (passiv<\/strong>) form? And how does it differ from the regular active (aktiv<\/strong>) stuff? At it\u2019s most basic, you can explain it like that:<\/p>\n In Swedish it works more or less like that too, except that turning an active sentence into a passive one is much easier than in English. What? You don\u2019t believe me? Take a look:<\/p>\n See, it wasn\u2019t that hard. I told you!<\/p>\n In the first active voice sentence \u201cbilen<\/strong>\u201d is the object. This object becomes the subject of the passive voice sentence.<\/p>\n In the first sentence \u201cPer<\/strong>\u201d is the subject. This subject becomes something called the \u201cagent\u201d in the passive voice sentence.<\/p>\n And what happened to the verb? A single \u201cs<\/strong>\u201d grew at the end of it. And voila, now you know how to turn active sentences into passive ones in Swedish.<\/p>\n But you know what? Many Swedish passive voice sentences have no agent whatsoever. And I dare say that those \u201cagentless\u201d sentences are the most common ones. Why is that? Because the agent is not really all that important. We are more interested in WHAT is being done, not in who does it.<\/p>\n Here are some examples:<\/p>\n This is probably the most common way in which Swedish passive voice is normally used: to give instructions, to post notices, or to tell you not to do something, like:<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen countless examples of this type of passive voice in official correspondence, for example. Letters from Migrationsverket<\/strong> are full of it. So are notices from just about any other governmental agency. They love this type of passive, impersonal voice, especially when telling you what to do.<\/p>\n This is just one way in which the passive form is used in Swedish. We will discuss the rest, along with how to form \u201cs<\/strong>\u201d forms of verbs after midsommar<\/strong>. I think we all deserve a little break from all this recent grammar overload, right?<\/p>\n And yes, it’s MIDSOMMAR<\/strong> next week!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since we\u2019ve been talking about past participles a lot lately (fortunately, we are done with them now, because I was getting bored. And if I\u2019m getting bored, you must be fast asleep at the computer by now), getting started on the passive voice might be a good idea as well. But first things first. What…<\/p>\n\n
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\nI couldn\u2019t care less who serves this breakfast, I only want to know what time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\nYou see this one on packages a lot, telling you how to open them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\nYou see this one on almost all food and medicine packages, right?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n