The passive in German always involves at least one form of the verb werden, and sometimes also a form of sein. There are no conjugation tables in this section because we’ll only be using forms of werden and sein that we’ve already covered; learning the passive is not a matter of learning new endings, it’s about understanding the structure and word order of a passive clause. To highlight this, we’ll use the same sentence in all eight forms.
The present and simple past use the present and past conjugations of werden, respectively:
| Die Wohnung wird durchsucht. The apartment is [being] searched. |
Die Wohnung wurde durchsucht. The apartment was searched. |
The Perfect tenses use sein with the participle and worden (a short form of werden’s participle geworden). Remember that the Perfekt translates the same as the Präteritum form above:
| Die Wohnung ist durchsucht worden. The apartment was searched. |
Die Wohnung war durchsucht worden. The apartment had been searched. |
The future tense uses werden in the present tense, then the participle and another werden in the infinitive. The future perfect adds sein:
| Die Wohnung wird durchsucht werden. The apartment will be searched. |
Die Wohnung wird durchsucht worden sein. The apartment will have been searched. |
Finally, the conditional forms of the passive use either the Konjunktiv I form of werden or the Konjunktiv II form of sein, as follows:
| Die Wohnung würde durchsucht werden. The apartment would be searched. |
Die Wohnung wäre durchsucht worden. The apartment would have been searched. |
A few descriptive past participles are so common that they’ve essentially become adjectives, and you can use them without invoking the passive voice at all:
| Ich bin [not werde] beeindruckt! I’m impressed! |
Er ist [not wird] geschieden. He's divorced. |
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