The Passive Voice in German

The passive voice is used much less in German than in English, but it  is  used  Active and passive voice forms are not tenses. The active or passive voice can be in the present, past, future or any other tense.   To conjugate verbs in the passive voice, you must know the forms of  werden  (to become).  German uses  werden  Ã‚   the past participle, while English uses to be.A passive voice sentence may or may not include the agent (by whom something was done), for example von mir (by me) in this sentence:  Der Brief  wird  von mir  geschrieben. |  The letter is being written by me.If the agent is a person, it is expressed in German with a  von-phrase:  von Anna  (by Anna). If the agent is not a person, then a  durch-phrase is used:  durch den Wind  (by the wind).  Only transitive verbs (those that take a direct object) can be made passive. The direct object (accusative case) in the active voice becomes the subject (nominative case) in the passive voice. Active/Aktiv   Ã‚  Ã‚  Der Sturm  hat  das Haus  zerstà ¶rt. |  The wind storm destroyed the building. Passive/Passiv (no agent expressed)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Das Haus  ist zerstà ¶rt worden. |  The building was destroyed.  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹ Passive/Passiv  (agent expressed) Das Haus  ist  durch den Sturm  zerstà ¶rt worden. |  The building was destroyed by the wind storm. False Passive (predicate adjective) Das Haus  ist zerstà ¶rt. |  The building is destroyed.Das Haus  war zerstà ¶rt. |  The building was destroyed. Note in the examples above: Except for the last false passive example, all the ACTIVE and PASSIVE sentences are in the same tense (present perfect/Perfekt).The ACTIVE verb form hat zerstà ¶rt changes to ist zerstà ¶rt worden in the PASSIVE.Although the normal past participle of werden is (ist) geworden, when the past participle is used with another verb, it becomes ist (zerstà ¶rt) worden.If the ACTIVE sentence contains a past participle (i.e., zerstà ¶rt), it will also appear, unchanged, in the PASSIVE sentence with worden.The agent (der Sturm) is not a person, so the PASSIVE voice sentence uses  durch  to express by — rather than  von. (Note: In everyday German, this rule is often ignored by native-speakers who may also use  von  for impersonal agents.)The preposition  von  is always dative, while  durch  is always accusative.  The false passive example is NOT in the passive voice. The past participle zerstà ¶rt is only being used as a predicate adjective, describing the condit ion of the building (destroyed). Vocabulary Note: Although it has little to do with the passive voice, a few vocabulary comments related to the examples above are in order. Besides house,  das Haus  can also refer to a building or structure. Second, although it has several meanings, German  Sturm  usually means a gale or a strong wind storm, as in Sturm und Regen (wind and rain). Because the two words are similar to English (cognates), it is easy to misunderstand their true meanings in German. Aus der Zeitung: Some slightly edited passive examples from a German newspaper with the passive verb bolded. Ein neues Einkaufszentrum soll in diesem Sommer erà ¶ffnet werden. (A new shopping center should be opening this summer.)  Er ist zum Mr. Germany gewà ¤hlt worden. (He was chosen Mr. Germany.)Es wurden zunà ¤chst keine genauen Zahlen genannt. (For the time being no exact figures were named/given.)Am Dienstag wurde im Berliner Schloss Bellevue gefeiert: Bundesprà ¤sident Johannes Rau wurde 70 Jahre alt. (On Tuesday in Berlins Bellevue Palace there was celebrating [it was celebrated]: Federal President Johannes Rau turned 70.) The passive voice in German is formed by combining the verb  werden  with the past participle of the verb you are making passive. To conjugate the verb forms in the passive voice, you use werden in its various tenses. Below are English-German examples of the passive in six different tenses, in the following order: present, simple past (Imperfekt), present perfect (Perfekt), past perfect, future and future perfect tenses. The Passive Voice  in Various Tenses English Deutsch The letter is (being) written by me. Der Brief wird von mir geschrieben. The letter was written by me. Der Brief wurde von mir geschrieben. The letter has been written by me. Der Brief ist von mir geschrieben worden. The letter had been written by me. Der Brief war von mir geschrieben worden. The letter will be written by me. Der Brief wird von mir geschrieben werden. The letter will have been written by me. Der Brief wird von mir geschrieben worden sein The passive voice is used more frequently in written German than in spoken German. German also uses several active-voice substitutes for the passive voice. One of the most common is the use of  man:  Hier spricht man Deutsch.   German (is) spoken here. -  Man sagt...   It is said... When a  man-expression is put into the passive, the agent is not expressed, because  man  (one, they) is no one in particular. Below are more examples of passive substitutes in German. Passive Voice Substitutes AKTIV PASSIV Hier raucht man nicht.One doesnt smoke here. Hier wird nicht geraucht.Theres no smoking here. Man reit die Straen auf.Theyre tearing up the streets. Die Straen werden aufgerissen.The streets are being torn up. Man kann es beweisen.One can prove it. Es kann bewiesen werden.It can be proved. Man erklrte mir gar nichts.Mir erklrte man gar nichts.No one explained a thing to me. Gar nichts wurde mir erklrt.Es wurde mir gar nichts erklrt.Mir wurde gar nichts erklrt.Nothing at all was explained to me. Notice: (1) The emphasis may be changed by placing different words first. (2) An indirect object (dative) pronoun (mir  in the last example) remains dative in either the active or passive voice. (3) In impersonal passive statements,  es  is often omitted, as in the last set of examples.