Grammatik: Das Passiv
Illegally Parked Cars Will Be Towed Away at the Owner's Expense the Passive Voice in English: in the "Normal," Active Voice, the Subject of the Sentence Acts...
| Illegally parked cars will be towed away at the owner's expense | |
The Passive Voice in English:
In the "normal," active voice, the subject of the sentence acts upon an object: She snubs him.
Both German and English offer an alternative verb structure, the passive voice, in which the subject of the sentence receives the action: He is snubbed by her. To transform the active to the passive, we turn the direct object "him" into the grammatical subject "he" and place it in the customary first position. The active verb, "snubs," becomes the past participle ("snubbed"), and "to be" is inserted as the auxiliary verb: thus She snubs him becomes He is snubbed.
(Colloquial English sometimes uses "to get" as the auxiliary verb, as in: "He gets snubbed all the time.")
One purpose of the passive voice is avoid identifying the active subject — "Mistakes were made" — but if we do want to retain that information, we put it into a prepositional phrase: He is snubbed by her.
The passive sentence's tenses are achieved through manipulation of the auxiliary verb: He was snubbed. He is being snubbed. He had been snubbed. He will be snubbed. Etc.
| Stealing newspapers is a punishable offence and will be reported. | |
The Passive Voice in German:
German uses a similar structure for the passive, but with "werden" as the auxiliary verb. Here the accusative object of the action becomes the nominative subject: Ich sehe dich. → Du wirst gesehen.
| Du wirst beobachtet. | You are being observed. |
| Hier wird nur Deutsch gesprochen. | Only German is spoken here. |
| Goethes Name wird mit "oe" geschrieben. | Goethe's name is written with "oe". | Wir werden nicht ganz verstanden. | We aren't being totally understood. |
Tenses in the Passive Voice.
As is English, we change tenses through the auxiliary verb ("werden"). Of course, "werden" takes "sein" in the perfect tenses. The only difference comes in the past participle: instead of "geworden" we use "worden":
| This (subway)car was maliciously dirtied/damaged. We will fix the damages promptly. | |
| Present Perfect | Du bist gesehen worden. | You were seen. |
| Das Ganze ist vergessen worden. | The whole thing has been forgotten. | Ihr Mann ist verhaftet worden. | Her husband has been arrested. |
| Past Perfect | Der Film war schon zweimal gezeigt worden. | The film had already been shown twice. |
| Das Essen war schon vorbereitet worden. | The meal had already been prepared. | |
| Future | Du wirst erwischt werden. | You'll get caught. |
| Das Buch wird gekürzt werden. | The book will be shortened. | |
| Future Perfect | Alles wird vor Montag in Ordnung gebracht worden sein. | Everything will have been put in order by Monday. |
The Passive Voice with Verbs That Take the Dative Case:
Verbs that take the dative case, even when a direct action is implied, require a different structure, with the dative retained: Sie hilft mir → Mir wird von ihr geholfen. Note that "mir" is not the grammatical subject; there is an understood "es." In fact, the sentence could also read: Es wird mir geholfen. (See the discussion of the introductory "es" below).
| Happiness is being helped quickly. Safe, fast, and close by. The pharmacy cannot be replaced by mail order. | |
Modals in the Passive Voice:
As is English, a modal auxiliary is normally the finite verb in the passive:
Marcus Vance is a cybersecurity auditor and technology writer dedicated to educating the public about online safety, data privacy regulations, enterprise security, and emerging cyber threats.
