Can someone explain the difference between active and passive to my DH in a way that doesn't make me cross!?!

[KirstyJC]

OK, so I'm trying to explain to DH the reason why it's incorrect to say 'we are sat on the settee' and that we should say 'we are sitting on the settee'. I am starting to lose my rag!!!!

Not his fault, just that I am finding it hard to explain the difference between active and passive and that 'sat' can be used correctly as a past participle - and also why so many people use it incorrectly (which I don't actually understand anyway - why do they do that??).

I did Latin at school and we learnt all the names for different bits of grammar but I have forgotton loads and he didn't learn much so my poor explanations are getting a poor reception!

Anyone got a clear way of clarifying? My 'because it just is' answer doesn't seem to be holding much water with him....

The active voice is where the Subject of a sentence does the action which is affects the object of the sentence.

The dog(subject) catches the bone (object) .

In the passive voice, the action is done to the subject of the sentence.

The bone (subject) is caught by the dog (obj).

To say 'we are sat on the settee' is just incorrect, imo.

'are' needs the progressive form of the verb to make the present progressive in this case.

"Sat" isn't a participle- it's the past perfect tense. "Sitting" is, and you could say we "are sitting" if you're doing it now or we "were sitting" or "had been sitting" or "would have been sitting", etc, all of which would have used just one word (each) in Latin, making the grammar much more obvious, in a way. But you wouldn't say "we are left the house" if you were walking out of it, even though this is exactly the same as saying "we are sat on the sofa", grammatically.

"Sat" has the air of an adjective ("sat on the sofa, a boy mused...") and so it's tempting to misuse it like this in a way you wouldn't with other words.

Agree it's not active/passive - it's an auxilliary/aspect issue.

Sat is the perfect form taking the auxilliary have or the past, which is used without an auxilliary.

I sat on the settee.
I have sat on the settee.

The verb 'to be' is used with the -ing (progressive) aspect.

We are sitting.
We have been sitting.
We had been sitting.

However you can say 'we have been sat' because that's the present perfect passive, using the present perfect (have been) of the verb 'to be' and the passive of the verb 'to sit'.

Hi, OK I'm totally out of my depth here, aren't I?!

What I was trying to get at (I think) is what frakkit said about 'we have been sat' being the passive voice as opposed to 'we are sitting' being the active. ie if you say 'sat' then you are implying someone has put you there!

I think maybe DH might prefer my explanation of 'it just is OK' after all!! (My god you lot know your stuff!!)