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Passive Voice in German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5054 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 16 17 March 2012 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
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In German, regarding the passive voice, when you use the passive in the perfect tenses, when you use worden as the past participle, is it always used with a form of sein? I have never seen when you would use haben. Examples perhaps could include: Die Katze war von mir gesehen worden, the cat had been seen by me or Die Katze ist von mir gesehen worden, the cat has been seen by me, or Die Katze wird von mir gesehen worden sein, the cat will have been seen by me. I guess ny question is the active voice, sehen is considered to be a Haben verb, in the perfec tenses, ich habe die Katze gesehen, i have seen the cat, but in the passive no matter whether a verb takes Haben or Sein in the active, it will always take a tense of sein, ist, war etc in the passive in the perfect tenses?
I hope, that my questiion is clear, I just need some clarification. If any of you want to add more info regarding the passive voice in German pelase do. I would really appreciate it, as I am trying to master this next step in reaching fluency in my target language. Danke sehr! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4961 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 2 of 16 17 March 2012 at 4:54am | IP Logged | ||
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The auxilliary verb for werden is sein. That is all that it is ever used with.
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| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5603 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 3 of 16 17 March 2012 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Usually verbs which form their perfect with "sein" (e.g. Ich bin gegangen) don't take direct objects and have therefore no passive voice. Any counter examples? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4961 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 4 of 16 17 March 2012 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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A counter example is wohnen. Ich habe gewohnt.
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| manish Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 5550 days ago 88 posts - 136 votes Speaks: Romanian*, English, German Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 16 17 March 2012 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
A counterexample of what? I think Cabaire was looking for verbs which form their perfect with "sein" and take direct objects/have a passive voice, not for verbs which form their perfect with "haben". @Cabaire: Apparently verbs that form their perfect with "sein" only have a passive voice for the 3rd person singular: e.g. "es ist gegangen worden", "es ist gefahren worden" (there are also conjugations of "fahren" with "haben", those have the full spectrum of passive forms)... Edited by manish on 17 March 2012 at 1:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4953 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 6 of 16 18 March 2012 at 2:47am | IP Logged | ||
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As a non-native learner of German, I think I know where LebensForm is coming from. Perhaps I can clarify.
The reason that the past tenses in the passive voice only use "sein", is because you have to remember that you are putting the verb "werden" (the verb that creates the passive voice), in the past. In the active voice, "werden" is conjugated with "sein", and so it is also conjugated in the passive. You must remember that the past participle you use to form the passive voice in the present tense is a dependent verb of "werden". Ich werde heute geprüft. Therefore, when you want to put that present tense passive in the past, the dependent verb in the present tense sentence does not determine the past auxiliary haben/sein, werden always does because that is the verb being put in the past. And therefore it is always "sein" for the past passive voices. Ich bin heute geprüft worden. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5054 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 16 18 March 2012 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks all, just wanted to make sure Sein was always the auxilliary verb, I just could not think of that word at the time. And I do understand, that verbs that do not take direct objects (in the accusitive) cannot be formed in the passive.
Thanks again! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5054 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 16 18 March 2012 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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One more thing, I have seen when "es" is placed
before the verb and that it really does not have to be there, exactly what purpose does this impersonal "es" serve? Can anyone elaborate more on this? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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