Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to correctly form the passive voice and explain the difference between the “Vorgangspassiv” and the “Zustandspassiv.”

Lesson Explanation

In the active voice, the subject performs the action: Der Koch kocht das Essen. (The cook cooks the meal.) In the passive voice, the subject receives the action, and the original performer is optionally introduced with von (dative, Part 3, Lesson 3): Das Essen wird vom Koch gekocht. (The meal is cooked by the cook.)

The Vorgangspassiv — the more common of the two German passive forms — is formed with werden (Part 1, Lesson 4) plus a participle and emphasizes the process itself: wird gekocht, wurde gekocht, ist gekocht worden (perfect passive — genuinely notable: the participle of “werden” here becomes “worden,” not “geworden,” a special case found only in the perfect passive).

A genuinely German-specific detail with no direct English parallel: the Zustandspassiv is formed with sein instead of werden and emphasizes the RESULT of an action, not the process itself: Das Essen ist gekocht. (The meal is cooked — the meal is now in the state “cooked”; the cooking process itself is not emphasized, only the outcome).

A genuinely important special case: the impersonal passive can be formed with no subject at all, using es as a placeholder in first position (which disappears once another sentence element takes that position) — directly comparable to the verb-second flexibility from Part 2, Lesson 2: Es wird hier viel gearbeitet. / Hier wird viel gearbeitet. (both correct; “es” disappears in the second version).

Practice Questions