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Wann bist du geboren? (German) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5562 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 49 of 71 13 January 2014 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
I believe those can be used as adjectival phrases of the sort: "Der 1950 geborene President..." "Der in Paris begrabene Schriftsteller.." (Maybe a bit odd?) I'm not sure if it's significant or relevant (or even correct) though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5322 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 50 of 71 13 January 2014 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, in the German Present Perfect passive voice forms, the use of "worden" is the only way to tell the regular passive voice apart from the Zustandspassiv. IMHO, the regular Passiv usually merely states that an action was carried out by someone else or puts the focus on the action, while the Zustandspassiv usually stresses the result/finality of this action: Passiv: Der Patient ist operiert worden. [=we don't know when, why, by whom etc.] Zustandspassiv: Der Patient ist operiert. [=the surgeon has just closed the last suture] Note that you cannot say: *Der Patient ist vor 10 Jahren operiert. In that respect, the Zustandspassiv behaves more like an adjective and is often replaced by one or becomes one itself. For example: Der vor 10 Jahren operierte Patient lebt noch immer. Apart from some fixed expressions, the Zustandspassiv is rarely used in spoken and written German and can be safely ignored by most language learners until they're ready to read German classics.
Maybe my English grammar is a bit off, but I don't think that you can use "having/have been born" in English to refer to a specific point in time in the past (the Zustandspassiv almost always refers to a specific point in time). I also wouldn't interpret getting born as a (changing) state. IMHO, it's a process, the end result of which is the birth that the Zustandspassiv refers to. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5785 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 51 of 71 15 January 2014 at 12:32am | IP Logged | |||||
My thoughts exactly. Besides, most physical phenomena can usually be construed as a state or a process, depending on what you are trying to say. The point is that I (rightly or wrongly) had thought that "geboren sein" described a situation of having been born, construing it as a state (regardless of whether the situation could also be construed as more dynamic using a different construction) and "geboren werden" described the action of being born. It seems my understanding may not have been quite correct; but you can, at any rate, see why I found the sentence in the OP confusing. Edited by Random review on 15 January 2014 at 12:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4836 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 52 of 71 16 January 2014 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
This seems quite reasonable but it seems to imply that all these apparently sein-passiv questions are in fact just disguised werden-passiv questions. In other words, it seems to imply that the sein-passiv cannot be used to ask questions. That would make perfect sense and I'm kind of rooting for that to be true because, as has been pointed out in this topic, if you just ask "Wann ist die Tür geschlossen?" hardly anyone would think you're talking about the past, suggesting that worden would be necessary to resolve the ambiguity. However, one would also expect to find such an important rule mentioned somewhere in grammar books or on the internet and so far I've found nothing... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5785 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 53 of 71 16 January 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm pretty sure the "sein-passiv" can be used to ask questions. The fact that the post you refer to gives some examples of seeming "sein-passiv" questions that turn out to be contracted versions of passive questions with "werden" in no way implies that that the former don't exist. At risk of being wrong: Ist das Fenster geöffnet (denn ich will eine Zigarre rauchen)? Edited by Random review on 16 January 2014 at 10:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4836 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 54 of 71 16 January 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
Good point. So maybe it just doesn't work when you ask a wann question? Because now that I think about it even the example with wo works. Edited by MarcoLeal on 16 January 2014 at 10:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4846 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 55 of 71 16 January 2014 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Of course when-questions can be formed with the Zustandspassiv: "Wann sind die Läden geöffnet?" or "Wann ist die Arbeit beendet?"
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| MarcoLeal Groupie Portugal Joined 4836 days ago 58 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Portuguese* | Message 56 of 71 16 January 2014 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
But do those convey the idea of past? I'm no native speaker so maybe I'm under the wrong impression but if asked the question "Wann sind die Läden geöffnet?" I would answer "Die Läden sind von 8 Uhr morgens bis 6 Uhr abends geöffnet" or something to that effect, that is, I would assume it was a question about the usual opening times of the shops and not the equivalent of "Wann sind die Läden geöffnet worden"?, a question that I would understand as being about at which specific time the shops had opened in the past, which I would answer with something like "Die Läden sind um 8 Uhr geöffnet worden". Same goes for "Wann ist die Arbeit beendet?". I would I assume I was being asked when a given piece of work is usually finished. Edited by MarcoLeal on 16 January 2014 at 11:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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