A Foundation Course in Reading German, 2017a

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12/8/2017
1. Objectives
In this unit you will learn how to:
Identify and translate sentences using the passive voice, in any tense.
Identify and translate demonstrative pronouns.
Identify and translate uses of selbst and selber.
Unit: 9: Passive voice
2. Passive Voice
So far we have been limiting ourselves to the active voice, in which a subject
commits an action as, for example, in “The boy kicks the ball.” But you will
encounter passive voice quite frequently in formal German prose. Passive voice
expresses that something is done to the grammatical subject by someone or
something. A past tense example is, “The ball was kicked by the boy,” or even
just, “The ball was kicked,” which doesn’t specify who did the kicking at all. A
present tense example is: “The election results are counted before the winners are
announced.” As you can see, English expresses passive voice by using the verb “to
be” plus the past participle of the action verb.
German expresses the passive voice by using the verb werden plus the past
participle of the action verb. Passive voice in the various tenses is simple enough,
following the rules you have learned so far, but the results are uniquely
recognizable as passive voice, because werden is the verb that changes tense, while
the action verb(s) remain as past participles:
Present tense
Dieses Schiff wird von der neuen Firma gebaut.
This ship is being built by the new company.
[or:] This ship is going to be built by the new company. (Review the basics of
present tense.)
Past tense
Dieses Schiff wurde von der neuen Firma gebaut.
This ship was being built by the new company.
[or:] This ship was built by the new company.
Present perfect