Student: Nguyễn Thị Diễm Quỳnh Class: 4A08
Instructor:Nguyễn Ngọc Vũ University of Pedagogy
INTRODUCTION Passive voice is one of the most difficult grammar points that make students confused so much about both its function and its equivalent meaning when they translate a passive sentence into an active one in Vietnamese. For example:
“I was born in Ho Chi Minh city” (Passive) and “Tôi sinh ra ở thành phố Hồ Chí Minh” (Active) As we can see, the English sentence above is written in passive form while the Vietnamese one is in active but they have the same meaning. It is not always that a passive sentence in English will be translated into a passive one in Vietnamese. I am sure that many students who learn English as a second language can hardly know when to use a passive form correctly.
Or “The two house are built near one another” and “Hai cái nhà này cất gần nhau”. From the point of view of English grammar, one might ask: How can a house be built by itself? There must be someone to build the house. But in Vietnamese, they are complete sentences. There is no difference in meaning between the two sentences although the word order between the two is different. One reason is that the object of the verb can be topicalised, often resulting in a sentence translated with an English passive.
In this study, I will discuss the similarities and differences in the use of passive sentences in English and Vietnamese. Similarities between the two languages are that passive voice is used to emphasize the action, not the causes of the action. However, in English we tend to use more passive sentences while people prefer to use more active form in Vietnamese.
To help Vietnamese students study Passive voice in English more easily, this essay will give you a contrastive analysis of passive voice in English and Vietnamese in four main parts. The first part will give you an overview about passive voice in English and Vietnamese through the definition. After that, we will explore some differences and similarities of passive voice in English and Vietnamese by means of passive marking, typology, the relation between active and passive voice and the popularity of passive voice.
Because I am going to be a teacher in the future, I would like to mention some implications that we can apply in teaching as a discussion part. And finally will be a brief conclusion of what I have done in this essay.
