Grammar Corner

Practise Active and Passive Voice

History of Central Europe

I Lead-in.

1)    How many countries in Central Europe can you remember in 2 minutes? Note down the names of the countries and compare your lists with other students.

2)     What languages are spoken in the countries you noted down? What interesting facts do you know about the Central European countries in your list?

II In the text below, find and note down the examples of the following tenses.

Present Simple Active: broadens

Past Simple Active_____

Future Simple Active____

Present Simple Passive___

Past Simple Passive_____

Travelling, they say, broadens the mind. When we travel to Europe we wonder: “How did mosques and Ottoman built bridges like this get into southeast Europe – like here in Bosnia?” And while we certainly think that Prague is beautiful, many Czechs will tell you that all this glorious baroque architecture was built by the Austrians, not the Czechs. And when you visit Warsaw, Poles will tell you that hideous buildings like this are Soviet, not theirs. So this short trip through central Europe's maps is meant to explain just a little about how borders moved, and how cultures moved with them.

III Open the brackets. Use the verbs in text in the Past Simple Active (for example (do) - did), Past Simple Passive (for example (do) - was done; were done), Past Perfect Active (for example (do) - had done), Past Perfect Passive (for example (do) - had been done) tenses.

 This is how Central Europe 1)_______(look) at the Treaty of Vienna in 1850. There 2)_______(be) three big empires: the Austrian Empire, ruled by the Habsburgs; the Ottoman or Turkish Empire, ruled by its sultans; and the Russian Empire, ruled by the Romanovs. Germany? There 3)_______(not be) a country called Germany yet. Prussia 4)_______(be) the dominant state there. Poland? From the 1790s until 1918 there 5)_______(be) no country called Poland. It 6)_______(carve) up by the Russians, the Prussians, and the Austrians. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire 7)_______(reduce) and these four countries 8)_______(come) into existence: Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro. And since 1867 the weakened Austrian Empire 9)_______(become) the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Beginning in 1871 Germany 10)_______(unite) under Chancellor von Bismarck and 11)_______(rule) by Kaiser Wilhelm I and his successors. Here is the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand arriving in Sarajevo in June 1914. A few minutes after this picture 12)_______(take) he and his wife 13)_______(assassinate).  This was the event that 14)_______(touch) off the World War I. Some 15)_______(call) it the Great War. Millions 16)_______(die). And when the smoke 17)_______(clear) in 1918, all the great empires of Europe 18)_______(vanish).

IV Check and explain. Watch the video and check your answers. Explain the use of the Past Simple Active, Past Simple Passive, Past Perfect Active, Past Perfect Passive tenses in the text.

V Unscramble the sentences. Put the words in the sentences below in the correct order. The sentences use the Active and Passive Past Tenses.

1)          1850. / signed / of / Vienna / Treaty / in / was

2) Habsburgs / The / Empire. / Austrian / the / ruled

3) or / Turkish / its / The / by / sultans. / was / ruled / Empire / Ottoman

4) did / 1918 / not / Poland / exist. / the / until / 1790s / From

5) the / up / by / the / and / Austrians. / Russians, / carved / Prussians, / had / been / Poland / the

6) came / Montenegro / Empire / Serbia, / after / the / Ottoman / into / Bulgaria, / had / reduced. / greatly / been / existence / Romania,

7) united / Chancellor / von Bismarck /  Germany.

8) I / Germany / by / Kaiser Wilhelm /  ruled / was / and / successors. / his

9) and / Archduke / Sarajevo. / wife / Franz Ferdinand / his / were /  assassinated / Austrian / in

10) War / World / to / The / I. / led / assassination

11) called / World / War / War. / I / The / Great / was / the

12) of / empires / 1918 / Europe / had / the / By / great / vanished. / all

VI Tenses in the Active and Passive Voice. Read the text below and choose the correct tense.

At the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the victorious Allies redraws/had redrawn/was redrawn the map of Central Europe completely. Russia became/had become/was become the Soviet Union led first by Lenin and then Stalin. Germany became a democracy, but the Weimar Republic had hated/hated/was hated by the country's extreme right as well as the extreme left. And Germany's first democracy bear/had born/was born in a time of economic upheaval, social instability, and political assassination. Poland reborn/had reborn/was reborn for the first time since the 1790s. A new country, Czechoslovakia, carved/was carved/had carved out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it proved/will  prove/was proving to be the only stable democracy in Central Europe. Both Austria and Hungary were dismembered/dismembered/had dismembered and greatly reduced in size. Romania, which had been/had/was been on the Allied side in the World War I, had greatly enlarged/was greatly enlarged/greatly enlarged. And in the Western Balkans a new country formed/was being formed/was formed, Yugoslavia. It seemed/had been seemed/was seemed that no one in Europe fully satisfied/was fully satisfied/had fully satisfied with the Treaty of Versailles. Many said/was said/had been said it would only be a matter of time before war was come/had come/came again. The Great Depression that began in America in 1929 quickly was made/made/had made its way to Europe. In Germany the extreme right-wing party, the National Socialists under Adolf Hitler, had been taken/was taken/took power in 1933. Austria became/had been become/was become a dictatorship in the same year as Germany, and Italy preceded them both with Mussolini.

VII Watch the video and check your answers. Explain the use of the Active and Passive voice.

VIII Unscramble the sentences and Restore the Sequence. Put the words in the sentences below in the correct order. The sentences use the Active and Passive Past Tenses. Then restore the logical order of the sentences (the sentences list the events described in the video).  

1) Europe. / proved / Central / democracy / only / the / be / Czechoslovakia / stable / to / in

2) The / signed / Versailles / was / in / Treaty / 1919. / of

3) became / Union. / the / Russia / Soviet

4) Austria / size. / and / dismembered / were / reduced / in / Hungary / and

5) Versailles / in / no / of / satisfied / one / The / Treaty / Europe.

6) power / In / Hitler / in / Adolf / took / 1933. / Germany

7) Germany's / democracy / was / first / born.

8) country, / was / new / A / the / in / formed / Balkans. / Western / Yugoslavia,

9) time / for / the / the / first / 1790s. / since / was / reborn / Poland

10) of / carved / Empire / Czechoslovakia / out / Austro-Hungarian / was / the

11) power / in / Mussolini / 1932. / Italy / took / in

12) from / Europe. / way / Great / The / its / made / Depression / America / to

13) 1933. / Austria / a / in / became / dictatorship

14) was / greatly / enlarged. / Romania

IX Open the brackets. Use the verbs in text in the Active or Passive Voice.

Adolf Hitler 1)_____(bend) on changing the map of Europe his way. He 2)_____(march) into Austria in 1938 and then 3)_____(demand) a portion of Czechoslovakia. The British and French governments 4)_____(agree) to give it to him in the Treaty of Munich in 1938. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said: “We would have peace in our time.” But then German forces 5)_____(invade) Poland in 1939 setting off the World War II, a war that 6)_____(kill) tens of millions of people. Cities 7)_____(destroy). And the vast majority of Europe’s Jewish population slaughtered. While American troops 8)_____(liberate) Western Europe in 1944, in 1945 the Soviet Union liberated Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, the Baltics, most of Czechoslovakia, and a part of Germany. But wherever the Red Army went they 9)_____(leave) communism behind. In 1946 Winston Churchill said: “An Iron Curtain 10)_____(draw) across Europe dividing East and West.” By 1948 a new war, the Cold War, 11)_____(begin). The symbol of the Cold War was here, in Berlin. An ugly wall 12)_____( build) in 1961 between communist East Berlin and West Berlin. And West Berlin then 13)_____ (call) ‘the island in the Red Sea’. But in 1989 communism 14)_____(collapse) in Central Europe. Two years later, in 1991, it collapsed in the Soviet Union as well. The Czechs and the Slovaks 15)_____(go) their separate ways peacefully in 1993. Yugoslavia 16)_____(descend) into a series of wars which lasted from 1991 until 1999.

 As you’ve seen in this short film, Europe’s maps never really 17)_____(stop) changing, and Europe's history as we see still 18)_____(write).

X Check and explain. Watch the video and check your answers. Explain the use of the Active and Passive voice.

XI Over to You. Prepare a shot talk (2-3 minutes) about the changes in your country in the time period described in the videos. Use the Active and Passive Voice in your stories.