Learn how to make Continuous Passives

 

Continuous Passives

Before you look at this lesson, make sure you are comfortable with making the present continuous, the past continuous and the future continuous forms. You should also read aboutsimple passives first.

All continuous forms are made with be + verb-ing. For example:

My boyfriend is making dinner now.

My boyfriend was making dinner at 6.30 last night.

My boyfriend will be making dinner at 6.30 tonight.

All continuous passives use being + past participle instead of just verb-ing (for example "being made" instead of "making")

	Continuous Passive
Present	Dinner is being made now.
Past	Dinner was being made at 6.30 last night.
Future	Dinner will be being made at 6.30 tonight.

The future continuous passive (will be being made) isn't very common, possibly because it's so long. Usually we would just say "will be made" here instead.

When to use passives

Remember, we use passive forms when we don't know or don't care who did something, when it is obvious who did something, or when we want to focus on the object of the active sentence.

A mechanic is repairing my car at the moment.

My car's being repaired at the moment.

In the two sentences above, the second one is better, because it isn't really important who fixes the car (everyone knows it's probably a mechanic).

From: The Tiny TEFL Teacher