TeachingEnglish
I have a problem regarding voice and tense.
Submitted by arnob216 on 22 December, 2011 - 18:43
Recently, I spoke a line "I think I need some changes to be made in my life" and one of my friends told me that this is incorrect. I told him I tried to use passive voice.
He said, "The thing is 'to be made' does not go with Need. Need means future want and to be made is past perfect". So, according to him I did not use passive voice.
Now, my question is is his arguement correct?
How can I write my sentence using passive voice? (is it like 'I think I need some changes be made in my life?)
Is 'to be made' really a past perfect?
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I have a sentence like this:
If he ……......... soon, he might miss the train
a. doesn’t come b. isn’t coming c. didn’t come d. won’t come
Which is the best for me to choose? A or C.
Some teachers choose A, others choose C. Help me , please
His argument isn't correct.
Technically in English there are only two tenses, present and past. Tense affects the verb form, and it always affects the first verb in the clause (only in finite clauses - and in these cases the first verb is known as the finite verb). In this case, the first verb in the clause 'to be made' is 'be', and 'be' is not a past tense form. In fact, it is in the infinitive form because it is part of the structure "need + to + V" which means that it is part of the very structure your friend refers to as the future want.
Voice (passive) is different from tense in several ways - most importantly here, it requires a change in sentence structure rather than just verb form. In this case the use of the past participle, 'made' is part of the passive voice (be + past participle) and is not related to tense at all.
Aspect (perfect) is different from both, but closer to voice in that it also requires a change in sentence strcture rather than just a verb form. However, the structure is requires a form of 'have' not a form of 'be' (have + past participle).
Your sentence combines 'need to' and a passive-voice clause. There is no perfect aspect in any part of the sentence, and the only tense is on the modal verb need, which is in present tense.
One last thing, though... why did you want to use passive voice?
If you want your life to change, shouldn't you be the one to make the changes?
(=I think I need to make some changes in my life.)
"I think I need some changes to be made in my life"
I think your sentence should be changed:
I think some changes need making in my life
I would say: I think I need to make some changes to my life. You`re changing something so you`re making a change `to`something, not ìn`something.
For example, after you make the changes you could say, there has been a big change in him since he made changes to his life.
definitely choose A
Hi Corajean,
I'm not sure I agree with you about to and in. I mean, I agree with the underlying point, but I don't think it applies here. The changes wouldn't be made to the 'life' itself, the changes would be made to other things (such as work-life balance, exercise routines, etc), but those things exist within life. That's why I prefer "I need to make some changes in my life".
Best,
Heath
Yep, choose (a).
Both of these versions are grammatically correct:
"I think I need some changes to be made in my life"
"I think some changes need making in my life"
But I agree with what some others have posted here - both are a bit weird, as they use passive structures, implying that someone ELSE should make the changes in YOUR life. If this is what you are trying to express, then great. But I guess it is more common for people to say that they need to make changes in their own lives, hence "I think I need to make some changes in my life".
I also think that answer "A" is most natural.
However, I can see where the argument for answer "C" comes from - If we use the simple past in the first part of the conditional sentence, we are probably forming a "second conditional" (I think some people call is "unlikely condition"), and then we need a conditional form (usually 'woukld') in the second part of the sentence, and sometimes 'might' is used to replace 'would' to express that the outcome is less likely. I suppose that the people answering 'C' are trying to apply these rules here, too. However, in this case, it seems that a first conditional is more natural, since it is very likely that someone who comes too late will miss their train, and the outcome will probably be visible in the immediate future.
I can see that 'C' is possible in a context where the speaker is discussing a past situation, but it would be more likely in spoken English and only if fronted by something like "We thought..."= We thought (that) if he didn't come soon, he might miss the train.
But well spotted on the underlying problem CMF!
Although I still don't think it's possible (nothing in the sentence suggests a hypothetical or imaginary concept) it can match the structure of either the first or second conditional (because might can go in the same slot as either will or would).
So, Ngo So, you can point out to your colleagues that 'a' matches the first conditional and 'c' matches the second conditional, so the answer must depend on the meaning/function. In this case, the context suits the meaning/function of the first conditional.