Past tense, third person plural, passive voice. 过去式, 第三人称复数, 被动语态. We make the passive voice by adding "be" to the third form of the verb, and conjugating "be" in the tense of the original sentence. I ate food=我吃了饭。 The food was eaten by me=饭被我吃了。 No one took them seriously=无人往心里去 他们说的话。 They were not taken seriously=他们说的话被无人往心里去。

This is the past tense form of the passive voice. The passive voice is used when the subject or the one performing the action of the verb is not important or requires little focus. Instead, emphasis is put on the action and the object of the sentence. The passive voice is formed by combining the verb "to be" with the past participle of the verb. In this sentence, we have "were....taken." "were" a form of the verb "to be" and "taken is the past participle of the verb "to take." Here are a few more examples of the past tense form of the passive voice: "The ball was kicked 20 meters across the field" (This sentence expresses the action and it does not tell WHO kicked the ball, as the target information is the action and the result of that action) "I was given a failing grade on my last test." (by context, we could assume that "a teacher" gave the failing grade, but the speaker wants to emphasize the action and therefore omits the subject) I hope this helps! Please let me know if you need anything else.