What is the passive voice all about? Sigrid takes us through the basics, step by step. In the active voice, we focus on "who" does something and in the passive voice we focus on "what" someone does.

Although we use the passive tense in the present tense, it's used in other tenses, too, and that's what we look at in this lesson.

Here are some examples of sentences using both the active and passive voices. Different tenses are used, too!

What are causatives? Causal verbs are used to cause things to happen. They're used in causative constructions. Although there are various specific verbs in this category, we commonly use four ordinary verbs for this: ("have," "let," "get," and "make"). Let's make some sense of them.

Sigrid begins her tale of how she ended up in Italy, where she's now living. She was born in Minneapolis and raised in New York. As a young adult, she relocated to Switzerland in order to study early music. In this video, she talks about traveling to Europe for the first time and learning about the different genres of music prior to the classical era.

Sigrid describes her time in Basel, and how she ended up visiting France and Italy as well.

Sigrid talks about some of the ways she learned how to speak Italian and French.

Sigrid talks about early spring weather, the importance of dressing in layers, and keeping the grass and weeds in check.

One way to prepare for Halloween is to make a jack o' lantern. In this segment, Sigrid explains what a jack o' lantern is, and how kids and adults celebrate Halloween.

The pumpkin is ready to carve out. Sigrid explains that pumpkins are indeed an edible type of squash and not just for making into jack o' lanterns. In fact, one pumpkin can become both a pumpkin pie and a jack o' lantern.

Sigrid finishes carving her pumpkin and places the candle inside so we can see the final effect of the jack o' lantern. Happy Halloween!

For so many of us, life has changed radically. We've had to learn new habits because of the coronavirus pandemic. Here are some of the changes we are having to make.

Everyone should stay home as much as possible to keep the coronavirus from spreading, but sometimes we have to go out for essential errands. What are some items to have on hand when we go out? Sigrid talks about five of them.

What a time to be learning English! Things are happening quickly in the United States and history is being made right now, so don't miss out on the words and expressions you need to know.

We keep seeing the "Black Lives Matter" slogan all around — what's it all about? Well, it's a long story. Here's part of the story in a nutshell.