German grammar tips: How to master the passive voice

Perhaps you don’t know who was responsible for an action. Perhaps it was you and you’d rather not take responsibility. Either way, getting a grip on how to use the passive voice in German is a trick you need to master.

Famously, George Washington informed his father: “I cannot tell a lie. I cut down the cherry tree.”

In his place, a person with slightly lower moral standards than Honest George might have reached for a passive construction: “The cherry tree has been cut down.”

The passive is also necessary for describing something that happens to you: I was punished for cutting down the tree

But how do you construct the passive voice in German?

Option one: Stick it to the ‘man’

Option one is a cheat. While the use of the word ‘one’ (as in “one seldom eats spam anymore”) has pretty much vanished from English outside the British royal family, the German equivalent is still very much part of everyday speech.

A less honest, German-speaking George could easily say: Man hat den Kirschbaum gefällt.

In German, this is different from saying Jemand (someone) hat den Kirschbaum gefällt.

As in English, using the word for “someone” throws the emphasis of the sentence on the unknown actor, rather than the act itself. Man, on the other hand, works much more like the English passive, an almost invisible word which keeps the focus squarely on the act.

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In the following examples, the use of man indicates that the theft of a bag or the sudden appearance of a cake are more important to the speaker than the thief or baker.

Man hat meine Tasche gestolen

Man hat einen Kuchen gebacken

Option two: the passive voice

In English, the passive is typically formed by putting an object at the beginning of a sentence and then using a combination of the verb “to be” (conjugated) and the past participle of the main verb, as follows:

The cake (object) was (“to be” in past form) eaten (past participle of the main verb “to eat”)

The system is exactly the same in German, except that the verb “to be” is replaced with the verb werden (to become).

Der Kuchen wurde gegessen.

Wurde is the "he/she/it" form of werden in the simple past.

The same holds true for using the passive voice in the present and future.

The cake is being eaten

Der Kuchen wird gegessen (he/she/it form of werden in the present)

The cake will be eaten

Der Kuchen wird gegessen werden (he/she/it form of werden in the future)

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In the latter example, think of wird as “will” and werden as “be”, then imagine Yoda is speaking: “the cake will eaten be” (always a good tip when trying to crack the mysteries of German word order!):

Ein Geheimnis wird enthüllt werden

A mystery will revealed be

Or, in the plural:

Die Geheimnisse werden enthüllt werden

Objects, by definition, are either "its" or "theys". For one object, use wurde for the past, wird for the present and wird…werden for the future.

For multiple objects, use wurden for the past, werden for the present and werden...werden for the future.

If something is done to you, use wurde, werde or werde...werden:

Ich wurde bestraft, weil ich den Baum gefällt habe (I was punished for cutting down the tree).

Ich werde bestraft (I am being punished)

Ich werde bestraft werden (I will be punished)

Don’t panic!

From time to time you will hear people in German using sein (“to be”) to form the passive voice rather than werden.

German divides the passive into something called the Vorgangspassiv (process passive) and something called the Zustandspassiv (state passive).

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The former is the version described above, which uses werden. The latter version is a genuine mystery for most non-native German-speakers.

In English, we have “the window was opened” (das Fenster wurde geöffnet) and “the window is open” (das Fenster ist offen), which is not a passive construction at all but the verb “to be” plus an adjective, “open”.

The German Zustandpassive, formed of sein plus a past participle, introduces a third option: das Fenster ist geöffnet.

The specific meaning of this form, and the extremely marginal way in which it differs from either das Fenster wurde geöffnet or das Fenster ist offen is a puzzle best left to linguists and best ignored by everyone else.

Equally, you might hear some say das Fenster ist geöffnet worden rather than das Fenster wurde geöffnet.

The only difference is meaning is that you can be sure if the window is still open in the latter sentence (this is similar to the difference in meaning between "the window has been opened" and "the window was opened" in English).

While there may be times when this feels important, it will rarely be so important that anyone but a genuinely advanced German-speaker should even think of attempting to run three three different forms of three different verbs together without a break (sein, öffnen and werden).

Everyone else is advised to stick to the simpler form!