When and how do I use the passive voice in German?

The passive is used when the speaker/writer wants to put emphasis on the action and object of the sentence rather than the subject doing the action. For example in English the active sentence "He is building the house"would become "The house is being built (by him)" in the passive. In order to form the passive in German, you use the verb "werden" and a past participle.

The conjugation of werden expresses the tense of the clause and the past participle remains unchanged. In the present tense werden is conjugated as follows: ich werde, du wirst, er wird, sie wird, wir werden, ihr werdet, Sie/sie werden. Therefore "The house is being built by him" would be "Das Haus wird von ihm gebaut".

  Here's a quick breakdown of werden+passive in its different tenses, using this example. (the components of the conjugated werden are underlined)

present- Das Haus wird von ihm gebaut.

imperfect- Das Haus wurde von ihm gebaut.

perfect- Das Haus ist von ihm gebaut worden.

pluperfect- Das Haus war von ihm gebaut worden.

future- Das Haus wird von ihm gebaut werden.

EE
Answered by Eleanor E. German tutor

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