Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Wuppertal (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Contrastive Syntax, language: English, abstract: In how far are active and passive voice in English and German different from each other? What difficulties do learners of English as a second language have to face when they deal with “voice”, especially in academic writing? This paper intends to answer these questions by firstly dealing with the descriptions and comparisons of active and passive voice, and partly also middle voice, as far as they are presented in Understanding English-German Contrasts by König & Gast. In a second step, certain exemplary problems that L21 learners of English come across when dealing with active and passive voice will be picked from Hinkel’s Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar. These problems will then be examined by referring back to the text by König & Gast.

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,7, , language: English, abstract: Nowadays, it seems perfectly normal to many Germans using English words in daily conversations, however, on the level of pronunciation, it is common to stick to the German sound system. Yet, there are language learners who know about the different phonological patterns of the two languages. To understand the reasons why German second language learners face difficulties pronouncing English sounds, this term paper focuses on potential areas of concern. English words are placed into the context of the native language and are characterized by its foreign-sounding accent. This accent is defined as a which give information on a person’s social background and indicate. At the same time, pronunciation itself while the pronunciation of individual sounds does not make a difference in meaning in the German language, it can have a distinctive function in the English language. Many language learners, however, are not aware of this contradiction between their first language and the target language and therefore, tend to pronounce English words incorrectly.

The focus on communication in TBLT often comes at the expense of form. In this book, the task-based approach is enhanced and coupled with insights into (cognitive) grammar, an approach which sees grammar as meaningful. The book shows how grammar teaching can be integrated into a communicative lesson in a non-explicit way, i.e., "by the backdoor". The learners are involved in situations that they may also encounter outside their classrooms and they are given communicative tasks they are to work on and solve, usually with a partner or in small groups. What teachers need to invest for preparing such lessons is their own creativity, as they have to come up with communicative situations which guide the learners into using a specific grammatical structure. The book first discusses the didactic and the linguistic theories involved and then translates these theoretical perspectives into actual teaching practice, focusing on the following grammatical phenomena: tense, aspect, modality, conditionals, passive voice, prepositions, phrasal verbs, verb complementation, pronouns and articles.

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Learning materials - English, grade: 1.3, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: This paper firstly compares and contrasts the phonetic and phonological systems of English and German and then goes on to describe some frequently occurring problems concerning pronunciation and non-native accents of German ESL students. Some of the factors leading to the problems that will be scrutinized are interference of German, learners’ attitudes and insufficient knowledge of phonetics and phonology systems of the English language, among others. Moreover, the concept of what is commonly referred to as the aptitude for (phonetic) mimicry will be illuminated and discussed from different viewpoints, taking into account the origin of the term and its applicability to linguistics, particularly within the fields of phonetics and phonology. One of the objectives of this paper will thus be to determine possible factors affecting learners’ pronunciation competence and to examine to what extent formal instruction in phonetics and phonology can alleviate certain pronunciation difficulties. To that end, a small-scale study was designed and conducted at the University of Cologne with first- and second-year English students, five of whom had not yet taken the Practical Phonetics & Phonology (PPP) course that forms an obligatory part of the English Studies Bachelor’s Degree Program and five who had taken it during the previous semester and had passed the end-of-module exam.

Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.

This Book Covers The Following Topics: Active and Passive Voice Interchange of Active and Passive Voice 1. First or Second Form of Verb 2. Auxiliary Verb ‘Be’ + -ING Form of Verb 3. Have/Has/Had + Past Participle 4. Present/Future Modals + Verb Word 5. Past Modals + Past Participle 6. Verb + Preposition 7. Main Verb + Object + Complement 8. Main Verb + Object + Object 9. Have/Has/Had + Infinitive (To + Verb) 10. Auxiliary Verb ‘Be’ + Infinitive (To + Verb) 11. Verb + Object + Infinitive (Without ‘To’) 12. There + Verb ‘Be’ + Noun + Infinitive 13. Interrogative Sentences 14. Imperative Sentences 15. Principal Clause + That + Noun Clause (Object) 16. Verb followed by --ING form or an Infinitive 17. Use of Prepositions 18. The Passive With GET 19. Middle Voice Exercise -- 01 Exercise -- 02 Exercise -- 03 Sample This: VOICE - Definition Voice refers to the form of a verb that shows whether the subject of a sentence performs the action or is affected by it. ACTIVE VOICE - Definition The form of a verb in which the subject is the person or thing that performs the action. Example: They finished the work. [subject -- “they”, verb -- “finished”, object -- “work”] In this sentence, the subject (they) acts on the object (work). Other Examples: The teacher praises him. She posted the letter. I buy new books. We will celebrate his birthday. PASSIVE VOICE - Definition The form of a verb in which the subject is affected by the action of the verb. Important Note -- The object of the active voice becomes the subject in the passive voice. Example: The work was finished by them. [subject -- “work”, passive verb -- “was finished”, object -- “them”] In this example, the subject (work) is not the doer; it is being acted upon by the doer ‘them’) Other Examples: He is praised by the teacher. The letter was posted by her New books are bought by me. His birthday will be celebrated by us. WHEN TO USE PASSIVE VOICE (1). You should use passive voice when you do not know the active subject. (2). When you want to make the active object more important. (3). When the active subject is obvious. (4). When you want to emphasize the action of the sentence rather than the doer of the action. (5). Passive voice is frequently used to describe scientific or mechanical processes (6). Passive voice is often used in news reports: (7). When active voice does not sound good. (8). When you want to make more polite or formal statements. (9). You can use passive voice to avoid responsibility. (10). You can also use passive voice for sentence variety in your writing. (11). You can also use passive voice when you want to avoid extra-long subjects. Changing Active Voice Into Passive Voice Rule 1: Move the object of the active voice into the position of the subject (front of the sentence) in the passive voice. And move the subject of the active voice into the position of the object in the passive voice. Rule 2: Passive voice needs a helping verb to express the action. Put the helping verb in the same tense as the original active sentence. The main verb of the active voice is always changed into a past participle (third form of the verb) in different ways. Rule 3: Place the active sentence's subject into a phrase beginning with the preposition ‘by’. Rule 4: If the object in an active voice sentence is a pronoun (me, us, you, him, her, they, it), it changes in a passive voice sentence as follows: me -- I; us -- we; you -- you; him -- he; her -- she; them -- they; it – it Rule 5: Subject- Verb Agreement Make the first verb agree with the new subject in a passive voice. Rule 6: When there are two objects (direct object and indirect object), only one object is interchanged. The second object remains unchanged. The following Tenses Cannot Be Changed Into Passive Voice: 1. Present Perfect Continuous Tense 2. Past Perfect Continuous Tense 3. Future Continuous Tense 4. Future Perfect Continuous Tense