G'day, how's it going mate? Today, I wanna reiterate the importance of using powerful and simple active verbs rather than passive forms and colourful phrases when it comes to speaking. Simply speaking, it is utterly nonsensical if people cannot understand you instantly. Let's elaborate it further.
In the first place, what are powerful and simple active verbs? Well, pretty much everyone had already learnt them all before graduating from your high school. That is, germanic-origin words. Why should we use them? Because, the overwhelming majority of people speaking English tend to use them on a daily basis without using complicated or colourful words. To what extent or how often do you use difficult words when it comes to just normal conversations? Almost none, right? Unless we discuss something like academic or esoteric topics amongst exclusive groups, we don't use too abstract words. Actually, you don't need them on a daily basis. Yes, of course, you can, but some people don't like this kinda situation. They might feel I've been intimidated or even despised, which often lead to confrontation with the person who intentionally uses too esoteric words.
From a different perspective, I reckon using passive forms and colourful phrases seem really strange or even frequently obfuscatory for just normal conversations. In terms of colourful phrases, particularly, people not knowing the original or cultural meanings behind shouldn't use them in a daily conversation. They often do not make sense to native speakers even if you wanna try to practise using them forcefully. So, be extra careful when you are using any phrases that you don't know really.
When it comes to passive forms, on the other hand, sometimes they are used naturally or fitted appropriately, depending upon circumstances. But normally, active forms are much more preferred in spoken English. My view is that even if you are writing academic essays, active forms are often far much clearer than passive ones. Yes, definitely, this depends upon which academic discipline you are in, because some particular disciplines tend to love passive voice rather than active one. Other than that, passive forms aren't really useful when it comes to expressing yourself.
And you can fairly easily avoid grammatical mistakes and the situation where the meaning you wanna convey is unclear whereby you use powerful and simple active verbs. I'm not saying that you mustn't use any, but nonetheless what I'm saying is that I don't recommend using too many passive ones even in writing, which is exactly what I wanted to tell ya today.
Thanks for reading my blog. Cheers.