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Das Passiv in German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| sofiapofia Pentaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4945 days ago 88 posts - 103 votes  Speaks: Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese, English*, Marathi Studies: German, Danish, Sanskrit, Icelandic | Message 1 of 8 28 April 2012 at 8:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Could someone let me know if these make sense?
1. In der Schule (lernen) In der Schule wird gelernt. 2. Auf dem Sportplatz (Fuβball spielen) Auf dem Sportplatz Fuβball wird gespielt. 3. Im Gesangverein (singen) Im Gesangverein wird gesungen. 4. In der Bäckerei (Brot backen) In der Bäckerei Brot gebacken wird. wird gebacken or gebacken wird 5. In der Wäscherei (Wäsche waschen) In der Wäscherei Wäsche gewaschen werden. werden gewaschen or gewaschen werden 6. In der Fabrik (arbeiten) In der Fabrik gearbeitet. Also how do I figure out word order for the passive tense? Like in 4) and 5) I'm not sure where to put the werden . I did read somewhere that if it is a main clause, then the past participle form of the verb is pushed to the end and if it is a subordinating clause, the werden is the last element of the clause. Could someone confirm this? I'm revising for an exam and I am really confused :( 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4833 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 2 of 8 28 April 2012 at 10:35am | IP Logged | ||
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The passive voice is formed by using a form of 'werden' along with the past participle
of another verb. So in the instances where you've completely ignored the use of 'werden' just don't make any sense. I just watched Zombieland yesterday and one instance where it was used was when Woody Harrelson's character tells Jesse Eisenberg's character, "Sie sind Schwestern und die Kleine wurde gebissen." (They're sisters and the little one was bitten.) Now, considering the nature of the passive 'die Kleine' isn't really the subject. She didn't bite herself, but rather 'die Kleine' received the biting from a zombie that wasn't mentioned but understood. So he could have just as easily said, "Die Kleine wurde von einem Zombie gebissen." "Die Kleine (who received the action of the verb) wurde (time in which it took place - past) von einem Zombie (the real subject - who/by what means/or with what instrument the verb was carried out) gebissen (past participle of what happened). ---------- Der Song wird von mir gesungen. (The song is (being) sung by me.) The song can't sing itself. So your real subject is who is carrying out the singing (me). This would be a present tense construction. But at the same time, you could just as easily say, "Der Song wird gesungen." Who's singing? It should be obvious. Maybe someone is on stage. Der Song wurde von mir gesungen. (The song was sung by me.) Der Song ist von mir gesungen worden. (The song has been sung by me.) Now you need to form things a little differently. The auxiliary verb to form the past tense with "werden" is "sein". Also, since here you already have a past participle in "gesungen" you will use "worden" instead of "geworden" even though "geworden" would usually be the past participle of "werden" in a structure like, "Es ist dunkel geworden." (It has gotten/become dark.) Der Song war von mir gesungen worden. (The song had been sung by me.) Now to take it even further into the past you can simply alter your auxiliary verb. Der Song wird von mir gesungen werden. (The song will be sung by me.) Here's an example of a future passive tense. You form the future by using "werden". Der Song wird (will) von mir gesungen (sung) werden (be). Der Song wird von mir gesungen worden sein. (The song will have been sung by me.) Der Song wird(will) von mir gesungen(sung) worden(been) sein(have). ---------- Your examples don't really make a whole lot of sense. You seem to have just thrown words together. In number one it'd be the equivalent of saying, "In school is learned." Ok... What is learned? It can't be a proper construction if you don't say what is learned. "In der Schule wird Mathematik gelernt." Now we have our location upfront (which is fine). We have "wird" in second position (which is essential). It's followed by what is being learned. Our real subject is understood (von den Schülern - or whatever). Then our past participle. Your second one is a passive construction, but the word order is wrong. You must keep your verb in second position. |Auf dem Sportzplatz (1stPosition)| |wird (2ndP)| Fußball gespielt. An alternatively correct construction would be: Fußball wird auf dem Sportzplatz gespielt. <-- Here we have 'Fußball' in the first position, but that doesn't matter as long as "werden" remains in second position. Three doesn't make sense. What's being sung? Four has all the elements, but the word order is off. Your auxiliary "werden" must be in second position. In der Bäckerei wird Brot gebacken. <-- Presumably by a baker. In number five: There is no plural for 'die Wäsche'. Therefore, you can't have the full infinitive of 'werden' at the end unless you're creating the future passive. So... In der Wäscherei wird die Wäsche gewaschen. (The laundry is washed in the laundrymat.) Or... In der Wäscherei wird die Wäsche gewaschen werden. (The laundry will be washed in the laundrymat.) Be sure to recognize the difference between whether or not you're creating a future tense with "werden" or merely the present tense passive. Number six? You just didn't try here. :) I hope that by now you could create a solid sentence though. I hope my 60 cents helps you understand a bit better. Edited by Kyle Corrie on 28 April 2012 at 12:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sofiapofia Pentaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4945 days ago 88 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese, English*, Marathi Studies: German, Danish, Sanskrit, Icelandic | Message 3 of 8 28 April 2012 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | ||
These aren't my examples!! They are from a sample paper from my university for my exam and they made absolutely no sense to me either which is why I asked for help on this forum. Thanks for your detailed response though! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sofiapofia Pentaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4945 days ago 88 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese, English*, Marathi Studies: German, Danish, Sanskrit, Icelandic | Message 4 of 8 28 April 2012 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I would love to tell my German teacher this :) Number 6 was an example sentence in the question paper (we had to base the rest of the sentences on it) 6. In der Fabrik (arbeiten) In der Fabrik gearbeitet. The questions made no sense to me either and seriously my German isn't that bad! Badly constructed sentences can throw me in the deep end! Edited by sofiapofia on 28 April 2012 at 1:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4833 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 5 of 8 28 April 2012 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Giving your instructor the benefit of the doubt: I would like to see the complete
instructions from the assignment and how exactly the questions were written. Perhaps it was asking you to create passive constructions by adding to the information provided. For example - if the assignment were to create passive constructions from the information provided. 1. In der Schule (lernen) Mathematik wird in der Schule gelernt. 2. Auf dem Sportplatz (Fuβball spielen) Auf dem Sportplatz wird Fußball gespielt. 3. Im Gesangverein (singen) Der Song wird im Gesangverein gesungen werden. 4. In der Bäckerei (Brot backen) Brot ist in der Bäckerei gebacken worden. ... And so on and so forth. My guess would be that you just didn't understand what to do. Edited by Kyle Corrie on 28 April 2012 at 2:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4848 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 6 of 8 28 April 2012 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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To me, as a native German speaker, these sentences make absolutely perfect sense. The problem is you can't translate these passive constructions literally from German into English. These sentences are impersonal constructions that don't exist in English, so you have to use your imagination a little bit in order to understand them. This can be done by adding a 'dummy subject' like "people" or "one".
1. In der Schule wird gelernt. "In school is learned." This obviously makes no sense, so a better translation would be: "In school, people learn." 2. Auf dem Sportplatz wird Fußball gespielt. "On the playground, football is (being) played." This sounds better than 1, but if we translate it like this, it becomes even better: "On the playground, people play football." 3. Im Gesangverein wird gesungen. "In the choral society is being sung." Now, this doesn't make any sense again. So, we translate it like this: "In the choral society, people sing." 4. In der Bäckerei wird Brot gebacken. "In the bakery, bread is (being) baked." Not bad, but more precisely it means something like this: "In the bakery, people bake bread." 5. In der Wäscherei wird Wäsche gewaschen. "In the laundry, laundry is (being) washed." This makes perfect sense and should be understandable. But you can also translate it like this: "In the laundry, people wash laundry." 6. In der Fabrik wird gearbeitet. "In the factory is worked." Now, this doesn't make any sense. So, we have to rephrase it: "In the factory, people work." I hope you understand now how this impersonal passive works. You can use it for actions without naming a subject. If you have any more questions, please let me know. Edited by Josquin on 28 April 2012 at 3:17pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sofiapofia Pentaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4945 days ago 88 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese, English*, Marathi Studies: German, Danish, Sanskrit, Icelandic | Message 7 of 8 28 April 2012 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah I'm glad a native German speaker decided to answer this post. The idea of adding a 'dummy subject' to understand the sentence is helpful. Thanks! Edited by sofiapofia on 28 April 2012 at 4:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sofiapofia Pentaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4945 days ago 88 posts - 103 votes Speaks: Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese, English*, Marathi Studies: German, Danish, Sanskrit, Icelandic | Message 8 of 8 28 April 2012 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm pretty sure I read the question correctly. And if I had to add something to the sentence, I would have read that. Here is the question copied from the sample paper: D: Passiv: Make sentences in the passive as in the example: In der Fabrik (arbeiten): In der Fabrik wird gearbeitet 1. In der Schule (lernen) 2. Auf dem Sportplatz (Fuβball spielen) 3. Im Gesangverein (singen) 4. In der Bäckerei (Brot backen) 5. In der Wäscherei (Wäsche waschen) Edited by sofiapofia on 28 April 2012 at 4:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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