ESL Blogs

Yes, I'm going to talk about 'the passive of perfective verbs'. 

The passive or passive voice is formed with the different tenses of 'be' and the past particle of a verb, for example, we can say 'My bike was stolen'. You may wonder if you can say 'My bike is stolen'?

Good question! My answer is yes. If you use the past tense 'was', you're emphasizing the action - you mean your bike was stolen by someone, yesterday or any day in the past. When you say 'My bike is stolen', you just mean the 'result or state', and you may have to take the bus or by Metro to school or work, instead of biking. 

Yes, you can also say 'My bike has been stolen' instead of 'My bike is stolen'. They mean the same thing because the verb 'steal' is just such a 'perfective verb' - 'perfective verbs are verbs which refer to actions that produce a finished result'. 

So, you can say 'The problem is solved', instead of 'The problem has been solved'. More examples: 'The shop is closed', 'The house is destroyed', 'The website is blocked/banned', etc.