Job Discussion Forums

[zander7990]

my girlfriend was watching this english show on nhk at 11 with mami and some guy. the sentence was "each of the stone was brought here from different places". she asked me why do you need to use both was and brought in the same sentence. i know you need it in this sentence but i cant explain it. can someone help me out??

[angrysoba]

The sentence is in the passive voice.

Instead of 'I brought the stone', it is 'the stone was brought (by...)'

The structure of the passive is:

object+be-verb+past participle (+by+agent)

In this case it was something that happened so the be-verb is in the past tense (was)

If it is something that still happens then the be-verb would be in the present:

eg. Toyota cars are built in Japan

Textbooks should be brought to school.

[Yawarakaijin]

"each of the stone was brought here from different places".

Wow there is a lot wrong with that sentence. First of all you dont have subject/verb agreement.

Please correct me if im wrong on that, if there is some obscure situation in which the subject/verb agree, I highly doubt it though.

It has to be... each stone/each of the stones/each piece of stone
I dont really know what the original intent was.

Your primary question though was why do you need to use "was" and "brought". Very simple.. PASSIVE VOICE is being used because the PERSON who brought them is either unknown or considered unimportant or the speaker simply wanted to make the rocks the focus of the sentence.

ACTIVE VOICE: Joe killed the cat

PASSIVE VOICE: The cat was killed (by Joe)

The passive voice is constructed by using a BE verb in the same tense of the verb in the active sentence. The verb killed is simple past so the simple past of BE=WAS is used (WERE if it was meant to be stones).

Then the past participle of the verb is added to the "BE" verb.
KILL--->KILLED---->PP= KILLED

Hope that clears it up, if not there are lots of websites that can give more examples of using the passive voice.

[Yawarakaijin]

As a side note and I'm am not trying to be a jerk about anything here but if you are an English teacher here in Japan you really should do some brushing up on your grammar.

I'm not trying to be a dick because just knowing the grammar certainly doesnt make someone a great teacher but if this ever came up in a class and you didnt have an answer it might cause you to loose a little face in front of you students. I cant remember if its AZZAR or AZAR but their series of grammar books are great for getting the various verb tenses nailed down.

[abufletcher]

Part of your GF's confusion may be due to that fact that in this sentence the simple past form and past participle of "buy" are both the same ("bought") it might be clearer to her if you gave her an example where the past participle form is unique such as "The stone was THROWN over the fence."

[danielita]