Video 39: Introduction to Aktiv/Passiv (Active–Passive Voice)

Source: Roughly 1 hour 42 minutes total. Approximate topic ranges (large stretches are silence/filler or pure logistics and are skipped):

• 00:00–12:12 — Logistics: roll call/attendance, discussion of exam scheduling for speaking (EB) and exam-prep courses, casual chat — skipped, except a short reading-strategy aside extracted below
• 12:12–16:06 — Sprachbausteine/reading-matching exercise (matching short ads/notices to statements about people's interests) with the teacher modelling a keyword-marking strategy — extracted below
• 16:20–24:06 — Kapitel 10 vocabulary batch (theatre, media, everyday verbs/adjectives) — extracted below
• 24:06–25:43 — Silence — skipped
• 25:43–01:02:51 — Main grammar topic: Aktiv vs. Passiv (active vs. passive voice) — subject/ object identification, the two core passive rules, werden-conjugation, dummy subject "es", and worked example sentences — extracted below
• 01:02:51–01:04:47 — Silence/admin (homework plan, scheduling next test) — skipped
• 01:04:47–01:21:09 — Kapitel 10 vocabulary batch on society/values (Werte in der Gesellschaft) — extracted below
• 01:21:09–01:23:28 — Homework instructions: workbook pages 117–118, passive-voice matching and fill-in exercises — extracted below
• 01:23:28–end — Logistics: Schreiben practice topics suggestion, Goethe-exam format note, long silence/closing — skipped

Topics Covered

• Reading-comprehension strategy: marking keywords before matching statements to texts
• Kapitel 10 vocabulary: theatre/event/appearance verbs and adjectives
• Aktiv vs. Passiv (active vs. passive voice): identifying subject/object, the core conversion rules, werden + Partizip II, the dummy subject es, and when naming the doer (von + Dativ) is optional vs. required
• Kapitel 10 vocabulary: values and society (Werte in der Gesellschaft)
• Homework: passive-voice exercises in the workbook

Reading Strategy: Marking Keywords

While working through a matching exercise (short event/exhibition notices matched to statements about what people are interested in), the teacher repeated a recurring exam tip:

• Before choosing an answer, mark the keywords in the statement first (e.g. the topic of interest, like Architektur, and a qualifying detail, like wanting to become an architect himself), then scan the notices for matching keywords rather than translating word for word.
• A statement mentioning klassische Musik does not automatically match a notice about music — one example notice that used the word klassisch turned out to describe a theatre play/drama (Stück), not a concert, so the correct match required reading past the surface keyword.
• Day-specific mentions matter: if a statement specifies Sonntag ("on Sunday"), look for a notice that explicitly supports that day; a notice saying an event runs täglich ("daily" — transcribed as "gay of net"/"taeglich") also satisfies a Sunday requirement, since daily includes Sunday.

Vocabulary: Theatre, Media, Everyday Verbs (Kapitel 10, part 1)

The teacher drilled a list of words/expressions, many with multiple meanings flagged explicitly:

• ansprechen — to speak to, to address somebody
• sich handeln um — to deal with, to be about (something)
• (an)schauen — flagged as having multiple meanings, including "to appeal" (to someone), in addition to "to look at"
• beschädigen — to damage
• Darstellung — depiction, presentation
• Frisur — hairstyle
• schminken — to do makeup, to apply makeup
• veranstalten — to organize; Veranstaltung — event (noun form)
• auftreten — to perform, to appear (on stage)
• aufführen — to perform
• umsetzen — to implement, to deploy
• anwenden — to apply/use
• entdecken — to discover
• sich entwickeln — to develop
• schreien — to scream
• durcheinander — mixed up, confused, messy
• aufgeregt — excited
• Beine — legs (the teacher specifically called out the spelling, distinguishing ei vs. ie, to avoid confusion with similar-looking words)
• Treppenhaus — staircase/stairwell (lit. "stairs house")
• Umleitung — detour, diversion
• heimlich — secretly, secret — noted as a near-synonym of geheim ("secret")
• Neffe — nephew; Nichte — niece
• ersetzen — to replace
• Schwerpunkt — focus, main emphasis (this word recurs later in the passive-voice explanation)
• einsperren — to lock up, to confine
• begrenzt — limited

Vocabulary: Reading-Exercise Phrases

From the matching exercise itself:

• Es wäre besser, wenn Sie gute Noten bekommen möchten. — "It would be better if you wanted to get good grades." (a Konjunktiv II suggestion used in the warm-up discussion about enrolling in speaking/exam-prep courses)
• Die Ausstellung läuft bis zum... — "The exhibition runs until..." (reading-exercise phrase for exhibition duration)
• Möchten Sie mit Ihrer Mutter klassische Musik live hören? — "Would you like to listen to classical music live with your mother?" — example of a matching-exercise prompt where the correct notice/answer was actually about a play (Stück), not a concert, despite mentioning "klassisch."

Aktiv vs. Passiv (Active vs. Passive Voice)

The teacher frames this as a brand-new topic — the first formal introduction to passive voice — noting it mirrors how Perfekt was previewed at A1 but mainly used starting at A2, and how Relativsätze were previewed at the end of A2 but mainly used at B1. Likewise, active/passive is being introduced at the end of B1 so it can be applied fluently at B2.

Active vs. passive: the basic distinction

• Active sentences focus on the doer (Täter) — who is performing the action.
  • Ich esse einen Apfel. — "I am eating an apple." (focus: I, the doer)
  • Mein Bruder ruft mich an. — "My brother is calling me." (focus: my brother, the doer)
• Passive sentences focus on the activity/action (Handlung) itself, not on who does it.
  • Ein Apfel wird von mir gegessen. — "An apple is being eaten by me." (focus: the eating itself)
  • Ich werde von meinem Bruder angerufen. — "I am being called by my brother."
• Both sentences in each pair describe the same real-world event; only the grammatical focus (subject vs. activity) differs.
• Just as in English, German passive sentences are built from a participle form (Partizip II) — comparable to English "eaten," "called" rather than "eat," "call."

Identifying subject and object before converting

The teacher stressed practicing subject/object identification using who (nominative) and what/whom (accusative) questions before attempting any conversion:

• Ich esse einen Apfel. — subject = ich (who is eating?), object = einen Apfel (what is being eaten?).
• Pronoun case matters: in English, I is always the subject form and me is always the object form — me can never become the subject of a passive sentence (it must first become I). The same logic applies to German pronoun cases when converting nominative ↔ accusative.

The two core rules of forming the passive

1. The accusative object of the active sentence becomes the (nominative) subject of the passive sentence. This includes changing the article: an accusative article like einen becomes the nominative article ein once it is the new subject.
2. The dative object stays dative — it is never changed into the subject. If the active sentence used a dative-requiring verb (e.g. helfen), the dative object remains dative in the passive sentence.
3. The verb werden is the passive auxiliary: it is conjugated in second position according to the new subject, and the Partizip II of the main verb goes to the end of the clause — structurally identical to where the participle sits in Perfekt.
4. Naming the doer is optional. If included, use von + Dativ (since von is a dative preposition). The teacher explicitly recommends not routinely writing the doer in passive sentences at this level — "being a teacher I won't suggest... even my teacher didn't suggest me to use these by-my-brother/by-me phrases" — write it only when it adds necessary information.
5. When the active sentence has no accusative object at all (e.g. a purely dative verb like helfen), there is no object available to promote to subject. In that case, introduce the dummy/imaginary subject "es", conjugate werden to agree with es, and keep the dative object as dative. Alternatively (and described as the more natural option, since the "es ist..." structure can otherwise sound a little confusing), the sentence can be restructured to start directly with the dative object, dropping "es" altogether — both versions are correct.
6. Indefinite pronouns (e.g. man, niemand) are never written as the doer in a passive sentence. Since they don't refer to anyone specific, "by one" / "by nobody" adds no information — when the active sentence's subject is man or niemand, the doer is simply omitted in the passive version. (The teacher flagged that with niemand, care is needed: if the original sentence's negative subject is dropped entirely without any other marker, the resulting passive sentence can accidentally read as positive instead of negative — a B2-level nuance, but worth knowing.)

Worked examples

• Active: Ich suche einen Mann. — "I am searching for a man." Passive: Ein Mann wird gesucht. — "A man is being searched for." (accusative einen Mann → nominative subject ein Mann; wird conjugated for the new subject; gesucht = Partizip II of suchen at the end.) With the doer: Ein Mann wird von mir gesucht.
• Active: Ich helfe dir. — "I am helping you." (dir is dative — helfen takes dative.) Passive (no accusative object exists, so a dummy subject is needed): Es wird dir von mir geholfen. — "You are being helped by me." Dative dir stays dative; wird agrees with the dummy es; geholfen = Partizip II of helfen. Alternative without "es": Dir wird von mir geholfen. (dative object opens the sentence instead).
• Active: Man kauft einen Apfel. — "One buys an apple" / "An apple is bought." Passive: Ein Apfel wird gekauft. — the indefinite subject man is simply dropped (writing "by one" would be meaningless/wrong here).
• Active: Niemand macht die Hausaufgaben. — "Nobody does the homework." Passive: Die Hausaufgaben werden (nicht) gemacht. — homework becomes the plural subject (werden, not wird, to agree with plural die Hausaufgaben); since the original subject was negative (niemand), care must be taken that the negative sense isn't lost when the doer is omitted.
• Preterite example — Active: Er sah einen Kuli. — "He saw a pen." Passive: Ein Kuli wurde (von ihm) gesehen. — "A pen was seen (by him)." Note von + dative changes er → ihm; Partizip II of sehen is gesehen; wurde is the Präteritum conjugation of werden for the new subject ein Kuli.
• Active: Der Mann half der Frau. — "The man helped the woman." (helfen = dative; der Frau is dative, not accusative — there is no accusative object in this sentence.) Passive: Es wurde der Frau von dem Mann geholfen. — "The woman was helped by the man." Or, dropping the dummy subject: Der Frau wurde von dem Mann geholfen. Either is correct; dative der Frau never changes.

Conjugation of werden (for passive)

The teacher highlighted that werden's conjugation is regular/normal but worth drilling since it is now functioning as an auxiliary: ich werde, du wirst, er/sie/es wird, wir werden, ihr werdet, sie/Sie werden (present); wurde etc. in Präteritum. The Partizip II of werden itself, used in Perfekt-tense passive constructions, is worden (distinct from geworden, which is used when werden means "to become").

Vocabulary: Werte in der Gesellschaft (Society and Values, Kapitel 10, part 2)

A second vocabulary batch, themed around values/society — relevant for Sprechen/Schreiben topics about social issues:

• Gerechtigkeit — justice, being right/fairness in a moral sense
• Freiheit — freedom
• Zivilcourage — civil courage (the teacher's example: speaking up when you see something wrong, even if it's risky to do so)
• Gesundheit — health
• Fairness — fairness
• Demokratie — democracy
• Rücksicht nehmen auf — to consider, to be considerate about (someone/something) — fixed verb
  • preposition expression: Rücksicht nehmen auf + Akkusativ
• Bildung — education
• Sicherheit — security
• Respekt — respect
• Ehrlichkeit — honesty
• Rechtschaffenheit — uprightness/integrity; the teacher also separately noted Sorgfalt/Sorgsamkeit-type vocabulary as "carefulness"
• Gleichberechtigung — equality (specifically, equal rights)
• Erziehung — upbringing — contrasted explicitly with Beziehung ("relationship"), since the two words look/sound similar but mean different things
• These vocabulary items were then applied in a short matching/discussion drill connecting each value word to a scenario (e.g. a person in a wheelchair → Gleichberechtigung/Respekt; "everybody is equal" → Gleichberechtigung; "speak up if something is wrong" → Zivilcourage; "good upbringing" → Erziehung; "fairness toward the teacher/in class" → Respekt/Fairness).

Notes & Tips

• Reading strategy: always mark keywords in the question/statement before scanning the texts for a match — surface-level keyword overlap (e.g. "klassisch") can be a trap if the underlying topic (concert vs. play) differs.
• Passive voice exam relevance: the teacher explicitly says this is being introduced now (end of B1) so it can be used confidently at B2 — don't expect to need it heavily in B1 Schreiben/Sprechen, but understanding the two core rules (accusative → subject; dative stays dative) is foundational.
• Doer is optional in passive sentences — when converting active sentences to passive as an exercise, the default/safe choice is to skip the doer unless the exercise specifically asks for it or the sentence is meaningless without it.
• Indefinite subjects (man, niemand, jemand) are never expressed as the doer in a passive sentence — drop them rather than translating literally.
• worden vs. geworden: both are participle forms of werden, but worden is used specifically in passive-voice Perfekt constructions, while geworden is used when werden means "to become."
• Homework assigned: workbook page 117 (match pictures to passive-voice sentences, e.g. Die Gemüse wurden bestellt — "the vegetables were ordered") and page 118 (convert given active sentences into passive using werden + Partizip II), to be discussed the following Monday (shifted from Friday so the gap before review wouldn't be too long).