AEE: How to Be Concise Part 3: Avoid the Passive
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This is an All Ears English podcast. How to be concise, part three, avoid the passive. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American host,

Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

Today, in our third episode of our three-part series on being concise, find out how you can manipulate your grammar to be more concise and therefore more powerful when you speak.

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- Hello, Aubrey, how are you today? - I'm great, Lindsay, how are you? - Doing fantastic. I am so excited to get back into our series today on being concise. Aubrey, do you consider yourself a passive person?

Ooh, good question. No, I don't think I am. I get, if I am really passionate about something or I feel like something is unjust or someone is being treated unfairly, I am not passive at all. I become very, yeah, active. Like I want to do something. So I don't think I'm passive. What about you, Lindsay? Oh my gosh. Yes. I've been in the streets a lot lately for sure. But when it comes to, for me, when it comes to, if there's a goal,

there's something I really want to achieve, to create. I'm definitely not passive. I will go after that goal and I will get a little bit obsessed with what I'm trying to build or create for sure. So I think neither of us are very passive. Correct. But this is interesting because today we're talking about passive grammar. So this is interesting that in English, we have this adjective passive.

passive where you could describe a person as passive so they're just kind of go with the flow laid back not getting really passionate and active about causes maybe and then we also have passive grammar so this is interesting because in this part three of this series about being concise the grammar you use can affect how concise your message is yes

Oh my gosh, I love this. I feel like often when we talk about being concise, we talk about vocabulary, we talk about using fewer words maybe, but changing our grammar is something I haven't really thought about yet and I bet our listeners haven't either. So I'm excited to get into it. But first, Aubrey, we want to call out some amazing listeners that reviewed our podcast. Yeah? Yes, absolutely.

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Miss LC from the US, Joseph M. from Uzbekistan. Wow, fantastic. Rafael Santos from Brazil and English Shiva from the US. A huge thank you to everyone that reviewed Allers English.

And Aubrey, what should our listeners do? Yes, leave us a review. We read these, we really love to see them, and it does help other English learners find the podcast. So thank you to everyone who has left a review. And if you haven't yet, please go and leave us a review wherever you listen to the podcast. Yes, we'll do our best to read your name out loud on the show if you do leave a review. So go ahead and leave that review for All Ears English.

I bet our listeners are curious now what we're talking about. How can we do this by manipulating our grammar choices to be more concise? Yeah, so it's vital that you prioritize clear, active language and also combine sentences in order to be more concise. So like you said, Lindsay, yes, it does matter how concise your message is and the vocabulary you're choosing. That was in the rest of the series, and you can absolutely listen to these out of order.

So stay to the end here and we'll share how you can find part one and two if you miss them, because this is so important, whether it's in daily conversations to be a better conversationalist or at work to be more concise. This is a very vital skill. Yeah.

Yeah, this is huge. And I love that we're doing this series. If you can master the skill of being concise, you can build confidence in your ability to communicate what you need to to get on stages, to get in front of groups and to start to become a leader.

Okay, so super important. Yeah, so let's talk about the active voice, right? So active versus passive, active voice focuses on the subject performing the action, whereas passive voice focuses on the action being performed. So if we look at a couple example sentences, you can see how in this case,

Concise doesn't mean how many words we're using, but how direct we are being. So for example, if I say, "The call was made by me," that is a passive construction. The focus is on the call. The subject of the sentence is the call. But if we want to make this an active construction and make me the focus and make the sentence a lot more direct, how would we say that, Lindsay?

We could just say, I made the call, right? I made the call. Okay. Exactly. Right. And this is interesting. You could be talking about a phone call or you could be talking about a decision. We also use the call to be like a decision I made. Well, it was my call. I made the call. It means that's the decision I made. Oh, that's a good bonus learning for today for our listeners, right? To make a call is not just make a phone call. It's to make a decision in kind of a casual way of saying that.

Yeah, but it's like you're accepting responsibility sort of for the consequence of any decision. It's like it was my call or I made the call. I'm responsible in the end for the decision that was made. Yeah, it makes me think of all the medical dramas that I always like a good medical drama, you know, the good doctor and then ER, the original medical drama. There's so much drama.

energy and worry and anxiety in a hospital, right? And the pressure that doctors have. Yes. And we hear this doctor saying, "Make the call. What's the call?" Or they'll say, "Call it," when it's like you have to determine cause or time of death. You've got to call it. And they're making these decisions under such pressure. You have three seconds to decide what kind of med to administer. Oh my gosh, I could never be a doctor, Aubrey. Right. They can't just take time to think through all of... They have to be able to make these snap, immediate decisions.

Yeah. Okay. So coming back to using the active voice as a strategy to be more concise. Another example, instead of saying she was visited by him, what would be better? What would be more powerful, more concise? Yeah. I could just say he visited her. So we will hear this. We'll hear people use the active voice. It's very common in like

academic writing, maybe instructions, pamphlets, pamphlets where people are trying to sound less direct, maybe more formal. But when often your message, if you're wanting to be clear and direct and concise, you should use the active voice. It's less wordy. For these examples, it is less words and it's just more to the point.

All right, that's perfect. So that is our first tip on how to manipulate your grammar strategically to be more concise. What would be the second thing we could do, Aubrey, when it comes to grammar? Yeah, the second thing is to combine sentences. So individual simple sentences require breaks in speech.

When there's a period, we take a breath, we pause a little bit. So especially for speaking, if you're going to give a speech, a presentation, you will not want these choppy, simple sentences. Sometimes that's a strategy to emphasize that we use these individual, more simple sentences. We want those breaks. But often we need to think about combining these sentences and removing those pauses to be more concise.

Yeah, so let's take a look at what exactly that means. So this idea of avoiding repeating the subject is one thing that we could avoid repeating. So for example, the phone is small. It is black or it's black instead of saying what?

Yeah, instead you could say the phone is small and black or the small phone is black. Oh, I see what you mean. If you combine it to remove the subject, whether that's actually the word a subject, the phone is small, the phone is black, that's even worse. Here you have a pronoun replacing it at least. The phone is small, it is black. Combine these sentences. Have just one subject and then the descriptors. Yeah, I could imagine using this phrase if I lost my phone, right, and people are looking for my phone around the house. Yeah.

What does it look like? Oh, it's small and black and it has a sticker on it. And you're giving the details. You're not going to start over and say, "My phone is small. My phone is black." No, of course not. Exactly. That's the opposite of being concise, right? So this may seem obvious, but once you are using more complex sentences, sometimes we will find ourselves repeating the subject or using pronouns when we should actually combine those sentences.

to be more concise. And not only should you avoid repeating the subject or using pronouns when it's unnecessary, sometimes you should just avoid using simple sentences. You can combine them into compound or complex sentences.

What does this look like, Aubrey? Can you give us an example of what you mean here? Yeah. So for example, if you're describing what someone did and you say, she arrived at 2 p.m. yesterday, she opened up the store, she then organized the shelves. You can combine these sentences into one complex sentence. What would that look like, Lindsay? Okay. So this is how a native speaker would say it. She arrived at 2 p.m., opened up the store, and then organized the shelves.

So here it's flowing together. It's not giving me a chance to get bored or to lose the momentum. Exactly right. And it's just making your message more direct, more concise. So whenever, if you're planning ahead of time what to say for a presentation or even a

conversation and you want to avoid, you know, taking the time for those stops, those breaks, the pauses that are necessary when we have these simple sentences. Think ahead of time, how could I combine this into either a compound sentence? That's where you have two independent clauses, two sentences that could stand on their own with a conjunction dividing them or a complex sentence that has lots of relative clauses, all of these interesting where you're combining multiple thoughts into one sentence.

Yes, I love it.

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Okay, Aubrey, we are back for our role play, our signature role play. So I am excited. We have two examples. One first is going to be a little less concise. So is this a what not to do Aubrey? Exactly right. This first role play, it's going to be the same basic sentences in both of these, but we'll first show you what it would look like with passive voice, with simple sentences, a little less concise, and then we'll show it using today's strategies.

Excellent. Let's do it. Here we go. I'll start us out. All right. The accident was caused by me. I ran a red light. Oh, no. Were you on your phone? Oh, there was a tall truck in front of me. It went through a yellow light. I couldn't see past it. Oh, I see. You followed them through the light. It was red by the time you got through. Yes. I have to go to traffic school now. That will remove the citation from my record.

Sometimes I have this problem when I'm driving on a highway or in a town. I can't see beyond the truck and I can't see an exit off ramp or a sign. This exact thing happened to me once several years ago where I was behind a really tall truck. And I didn't realize how close the stoplight was.

And I couldn't see the stoplight because of this truck. And I was maybe following a little too closely. But I just remember as it went through the light and I just followed it through the light. And then I glanced and it was red and maybe it was like yellow for the

the truck, right? They kind of like barely made it through, but I definitely would have stopped if I had seen. So anyway, this did happen to me. I'm like, oh gosh, I need to follow less closely, make sure I can see all the stoplights. I think that's the key is the following distance, but no accident, right? Aubrey, your traffic stories scare me. Yeah. Okay. I have a few of them.

Luckily, all of the other traffic in the intersection, they know to wait for anyone going through that yellow light. At least I do. I don't want to be the first one through an intersection. I'm making sure it's clear. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, good. Safe driving here at All Ears English. Good stuff. All right. Now this is a what to do. How to make this more concise. Yes. And then we'll show how we combined these sentences, whether we switched from passive to active. So let's show the better option here. I'll start us.

Okay. I caused the accident when I ran a red light. Oh, no. Were you on your phone? No, there was a tall truck in front of me that went through a yellow light and I couldn't see past it. Oh, I see. You followed them through the light, but it was red by the time you got through. Yes. I have to go to traffic school now and that will remove the citation from my record.

- Okay, this is super high level, getting into complex and compound sentences. So where's the first time we created a complex sentence, Aubrey? - All right, so that first thing I said, first of all, we switched to active voice here. I said, "I caused the accident when I ran a red light." Instead of in the first option, we had passive voice.

The accident was caused by me. And sometimes you will use passive voice to maybe take the focus off yourself, right? I'm like, oh, I want the emphasis to be on the accident and not me. But if I want to be more concise, more direct, and usually more natural sounding, I would use active voice here.

Or it does depend on, you know, if the cop is there and there are four people that came out of the car, you know, who caused this accident? It was me. It was caused by me. That would be appropriate to use passive voice, but that's a different kind of scenario. Yeah, that's interesting. Well, the accident was caused by a driver that was me. Yeah.

Driver that was me and still is me. Right. It's funny. But this is a complex sentence here. So initially we had these simple sentences. The accident was caused by me. I ran a red light and I'm having to pause there at these individual sentences. So here we've combined it. We have, I caused the accident. That's an independent clause. And then when I ran a red light, this is an adverb phrase. So we have a complex sentence here. It just flows so much more smoothly. I.

I love it. And then we get into another complex sentence where you said, no, there was a tall truck in front of me that went through a yellow light and I couldn't see past it. So what did we do here? Exactly. So we had three individual simple sentences before. Now we've added

that to combine the first two. So now that went through a yellow light. It's all an adjective phrase describing the truck and what it did. And then we add this conjunction and, and I couldn't see past it. So we're adding and and tacking on another independent clause at the end. So we have this very interesting complex sentence, more complex grammar, but also going to flow much more smoothly when you're speaking.

And that's what our listeners want, to be able to speak with this more complex grammar to truly express everything that is on their mind. So let's keep going here, Aubrey. So for the second to last one, I said, oh, I see. You follow them through the light, but it was red by the time you got through.

right yeah so originally this was two simple sentences now we've added the conjunction but combine them and made a compound sentence so we have you followed them through the light that's an independent clause it could stand alone as a sentence then we have but a conjunction followed by another independent clause it was read by the time you got through so we've made a compound sentence here and we did it again in the last one you said yes i have to go to traffic school now and that will remove the citation from my record

Exactly. Another compound sentence here, just having these two ideas flow together. And it makes sense, right? Because these are very related. Going to traffic school, that will remove the citation. Often with these type of thoughts that are so related, it feels choppy and strange to divide it into individual simple sentences.

I love it. I love it. This is great. So this is part three in our series, Aubrey, on how to be concise. And again, where can they go to get the other parts of the series? Yes, guys. If you missed part one, it was episode 2410 on All Ears English, how to be concise part one, direct your message.

And then 2413 was part two. So all three installments of the series are right here on All Ears English. How to be concise part two, choose your words. So it's about your message being concise, the vocabulary we need to use, and now the grammar. All right, guys, if you have loved this three-part series on All Ears English, make sure you hit the follow button to get our next two or three-part series right here on the show. Aubrey, where should we leave our listeners? This idea of being concise, it's

powerful right it is right it makes you a better conversationalist in your daily life and it does improve skills like public speaking giving presentations leading meetings all of these we all know people who are concise and those who are not right the tmi long message

at wordy what they're saying is wordy long-winded right and there is so much value to being more concise oh my gosh especially if you are at a level on the show where you are at b2c1 it is time to step up and become more concise you've got the individual pieces of these sentences now moving to create complex sentences using active grammar this is how you become better at

Really public speaking. You know, I think the time when it's the most important is when you're pulled in front of a group and you're being asked to say something important. People can get a little irritated if you don't get to the point quickly. And this can be different culturally too, Aubrey, of course. But I can tell you in American business culture, Western business culture, super important to get to the point and be concise.

Yes, so important in work, but also in daily conversations. I know people who write TMI wordy, using passive voice sometimes. Really? Yes, this does happen in conversations too. So it's vital for, you know, both in daily conversations and also at work.

I love it. I'm so glad we covered this topic today. And for any of our students listening who are coming to OCC, I want to see these skills right there in class. Looking forward to it. Awesome. Nice. We'll see you there. All right. Sounds good. Bye Aubrey. Bye.

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