In German, the passive voice is a grammatical construction in which the subject of the sentence is not the doer of the action, but its recipient.
The passive voice is formed with the auxiliary verb werden and the past participle of the main verb.
German
English
Das Haus wird gebaut.
The house is being built.
Replacements in passive voice: sich lassen & -bar
In passive sentences, the acting person is not important. Therefore, substitute forms can be used.
The simplest forms are pronouns like man and jemand.
In order to skip these and briefly describe the general possibilities of objects in passive sentences, we can also use:
- sich lassen+ infinitive:
German
English
Rohes Fleisch lässt sich nicht länger als 2 Tage verwenden.
Raw meat cannot be used for more than 2 days.
- sein+ adjective endings on -bar or -lich or infinitive:
German
English
Rohes Fleisch ist nur 2 Tage essbar.
Raw meat is only consumable for 2 days.
Quiz
1/3
Choose the correct form: US-Dollar ___.
0
correct answers.