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im new here, also new to learn english.
i got lots of questions .
today, i need to know what is .....

a movie "called"...
a movie is "called"....

are they same . passive voice?

or something like i have a friend named John, i'm alway confused with it

thank you all. and i will come back with new question..

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Hi Bob,

Welcome to English Forums.

You haven't given us complete sentences, so I'm not quite sure what you are wondering about. Let me off a completion of the sentences:

(1) 'A movie called 'Star Wars' is now showing.'
(2) 'A movie is called by a catchy title in order to gain a greater audience.'

These are both passive in form, but the sentence structure is quite different, as you can see. (2) is a passive sentence-- the main verb 'carry' is in the passive voice. 'Called' in (1) is the head of a nonfinite clause used as an adjective for 'movie'. The sentence is a shortened form of 'A movie which is called 'Star Wars' is now showing.' So you can see that in (1), the passive verb form is in a dependent clause; it is not the main verb, and the passivity of the form has been minimized.

In your third sentence, (3) 'I have a friend named John', 'named John' is again a nonfinite modifier of 'friend', and the sentence is a shortened form of 'I have a friend who is named John'.

Does this help answer your question?

Bobleader · Answer

thank you so much Mister Micawber
now i understand. that is a shortened form
thank you

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