The Passive Voice in German
das Passiv
The passive voice shifts the focus of a sentence from the actor to the action or the object being acted upon.
The passive voice (das Passiv) is a crucial aspect of German grammar used to emphasize an action or a state rather than who is performing it. It is frequently employed in formal, scientific, and technical contexts where the agent is either obvious, unimportant, or unknown. German distinguishes between two types of passive voice: Vorgangspassiv (process passive) and Zustandspassiv (state passive).
The Vorgangspassiv describes an action in progress and is formed using the auxiliary verb 'werden' and the past participle (Partizip II) of the main verb (e.g., 'Das Auto wird repariert' - The car is being repaired). The Zustandspassiv describes the completed state resulting from an action and is formed using 'sein' and the past participle (e.g., 'Das Auto ist repariert' - The car is repaired). If you want to mention the agent in a passive sentence, you use the preposition 'von' + Dative for personal agents, or 'durch' + Accusative for means or instruments.
Unlike English, German can also form an impersonal passive (subjektloses Passiv) with intransitive verbs, often using the placeholder pronoun 'es' (e.g., 'Es wird getanzt' - There is dancing going on). Understanding how to form and use the passive voice in different tenses is key to reading and writing professional German.
Examples
Das Haus wird von den Arbeitern gebaut.
The house is being built by the workers.
Die Tür ist seit gestern geschlossen.
The door has been closed since yesterday.
Hier wird sonntags nicht gearbeitet.
No work is done here on Sundays.
Wann wird der Bericht geschrieben?
When is the report being written?
Die Stadt wurde durch das Erdbeben zerstört.
The city was destroyed by the earthquake.
Related terms
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