Passive
Voice
To change a sentence from the active
to the passive, change three things:
1. accusative object of active sentence
to nominative subject of passive sentence
2. active verb to a tense of werden plus the past
participle of verb in active sentence
3. subject to von + dative object in the passive
sentence, if agent is mentioned
Present Tense
Viele Studenten lesen diesen Roman. = Dieser Roman
wird von vielen Studenten gelesen.
Many students read this novel. = This novel is read
by many students.
Imperfect Tense
Viele Studenten lasen diesen Roman. = Dieser Roman
wurde von vielen Studenten gelesen.
Many students read this novel. = This novel was read
by many students.
Future Tense
Viele Studenten werden diesen Roman lesen. = Dieser
Roman wird von vielen Studenten gelesen
werden.
Many students will read this novel. = This novel will
be read by many students.
Present Perfect Tense
Viele Studenten haben diesen Roman gelesen. = Dieser
Roman ist von vielen Studenten gelesen worden.
Many students have read this novel. = This novel has
been read by many students.
Past Perfect Tense
Viele Studenten hatten diesen Roman gelesen. = Dieser
Roman war von vielen Studenten gelesen worden.
Many students had read this novel. = This novel had
been read by many students.
*Notice that in the passive voice, the
past participle of werden is worden and
not geworden.
Durch can replace von when
the agent is an impersonal force (fire, wind, etc.);
but it cannot be used if preceded by a limiting word
(such as an article or adjective.)
Passive with modals
Shifts in tense will only affect the modal part of
the sentence. The infinitive forms of the past
participles are used with modals in the passive voice
as well. And where you might expect something
like Das Haus hat werden müssen verkauft, the
actual construction is Das Haus hat verkauft werden
müssen because of the double infinitive construction.
Double infinitives always go to the end of the
sentence, but you only need to worry about these in
the present perfect and past perfect tenses. |
