French · Chapter 15 · Lesson 3 · Grammar primer
Voix passive
Prescribed by the AQA specification.
The short version
I was given a book cannot be a French passive
French can only promote a direct object to passive subject, never an indirect one. In someone gave a book to me, the book is direct and I am indirect, so the English passive has no French equivalent. Use on plus an active verb, and the same fix covers I was told and we were asked.
On m'a donné un livre.
The tense lives in être, the agreement in the participle
Build the passive with être plus a past participle, and change the tense on être alone: la lettre est écrite, a été écrite, sera écrite. The participle hangs off être like an adjective, so it agrees with the subject: les maisons ont été construites.
Les maisons ont été construites en 1900.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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25-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
Lesson 3 of 7 in this chapter