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The passive voice (Passiv) is a grammatical construction that shifts the focus from who performs an action to the action itself or its result. German uses the passive voice extensively — far more than English in many contexts, especially in formal, academic, and technical writing.
| Voice | Focus | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Active | The doer (subject performs action) | Der Lehrer erklärt die Grammatik. (The teacher explains the grammar.) |
| Passive | The action or receiver | Die Grammatik wird erklärt. (The grammar is explained.) |
In the active sentence, der Lehrer (the teacher) is the subject and performs the action. In the passive sentence, die Grammatik (the grammar) becomes the subject, and the focus is on what happens to it.
The German passive (called Vorgangspassiv — "process passive") is formed with:
conjugated form of werden + Partizip II (past participle) at the end
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