Hello everyone,
and welcome to the second part of our look at
werden
Last time we were cut short quite abruptly right in the middle of the explanation, so if you haven’t rea… er I mean listened to it yet you can find part 1 here:
What we’ve learned so far is that werden originally meant to turn before it .. ahem… turned into a word that expresses self development; just like to become. And it is not a weird change of meaning because it happened with the English to turn, too.
- Die Milch wird sauer.
- The milk turns sour.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Die Blätter werden gelb und rot.
- The leaves are turning yellow and red.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Then, we started talking about the second usage of werden – a helper verb for the future tense.
And that’s where we’ll pick up today. And first we’ll explore how and why werden became the German counterpart of will.
Why “werden” and “will” express future
Latin had a grammatical future tense 2000 years ago, but the Germanic languages actually didn’t. They did not bother expressing future with a special tense at all. They just made a distinction between things that are past and all the rest.
And German is still very Germanic about that, because in daily conversation, it uses present tense for future events about 80% of the time.
- Nächsten Sommer fahre ich ans Meer.
- Next summer, I go to the sea (lit.)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The Germanic tribes then started to have more and more contact with Latin and long after the Roman empire had fallen, Latin remained THE language for science and the church. Kind of ironic actually, since the two hated each other for quite a while.
But yeah, so the Germanic languages came under the influence of Latin and at some point, they were like “Hey, I want my own future tense.” and so they came up with ways to express the future-ness of some action using grammar.
English ended up used the word will, which was originally doing nothing more than stating an intention. This:
- I will have another beer….
used to mean (and in German still means) this:
- Ich will noch ein Bier.
- I want to have another beer.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Maybe English speaker were just incredibly optimistic about achieving whatever they wanted and so will changed from expressing intentions into expressing the future .
- Thomas will become bald because his dad is too.
Today, the intention-part has almost disappeared…. just like Thomas’ dad’s hair. But if you really look closely you can find some left overs of the old intentional-will.
- Make of that whatever you will.
By the way… the shift of will from intention to helper is the reason why English, unlike German or French or Spanish, does NOT have a modal verb that expresses desire anymore. English uses to want for that but this is NOT a modal verb in English.
Yes, you may use that info to impress people at the next party. Work great.
Now, in German, they didn’t change their version of will (wollen). Instead they used werden to do the job of expressing future. And unlike the English will, werden didn’t even have to give up its “normal” meaning. Both functions exist side by side.
And now the big question is: why? How? What has becoming, which is the “normal” meaning of werden to do with the future?
Well… it is not that big of a stretch because… becoming implies that something isn’t YET but it’s on its way.
- Ich werde müde.
- I become tired.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
You’re not tired yet, but you’re in the process of becoming it, so in the near future you will be. There you have it – being is the future of becoming, if that makes sense.
So it is completely understandable that people would start using such a verb to express future…. I mean … why not?
In English, they expressed it using intentions. In German, they expressed it using the process of self development. And to give you some other options – in Swedish, they are using “shall” and “comes at, arrive”, in Dutch they also use “shall” and “to go” .
All those do make sense and there is no better or cooler. It is evolved differently. Do the different ways tell us something about the way of thinking, about ways of looking at the future? I really don’t know… I’d actually say no. Maybe it does tell us something about the people who lived when these forms evolved… for us today it is mainly a grammatical concept that we have hard wired in our brains.
Anyway … here’s the core of what we’ve talked about in the best form – the example form :)
- Ich werde nächste Woche viel arbeiten.
- I turn/wind working a lot next week (using the original meaning of werden).
- I become working a lot next week. (super literal)
- I will work a lot next week. (actual meaning)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
and here is the future-werden back to back with the becoming-werden…
- Wer wird die Wahl gewinnen? Wer wird der nächste Kanzler?
- Who will win the elections? Who will become the next chancellor?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Notice something? We’re talking about the exact same event :). In first sentence we’re using the future, in the second we don’t. That is to say, in German we don’t because German doesn’t use the future tense that much.
But the example leads us to an interesting question: how would we build the future of werden itself?
future-werden in practice
How would we say this for instance…
- The students know very well that they will become tired when the professor talk about grammar.
Could it possibly be a double werden? Wouldn’t that be too strange even by German standards? Let’s take a look…
- Die Studenten wissen ganz genau, dass sie, wenn ihr Professor über Grammatik redet, müde werden werden.
- The students know all too well, that they will get tired when their prof talks about grammar.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Ohhhhhh… and it is a double werden… and it is at the end. German, you language you, you did it again!
Seriously though, this sentence is a little contrived and it is definitely bad style. And since it wouldn’t make any noteworthy difference in meaning anyway, people would just leave out one werden. Which one? The blue one of course. Keep that in mind for your next test… don’t leave out the green one ;).
Now… although this very example was weird the combination of becoming-werden and future-werden is actually acceptable. When there is no context, we even need the double werden to make clear that it is future.
- Ich werde müde.
- I am getting tired.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich werde müde werden.
- I will get tired.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Does that sound weird or funny? Not so much actually… no more than this…
- I will want to remember that…
(at least to me, with my German “ich
will”-glasses on, that is a bit like intending to intend)
or this…
- Next week,I am going to go to Berlin.
All right. Now, I don’t want to discuss all the grammar of the German future tense here, or give you loads of examples because… you don’t really ever need to use it. In daily conversation, German really mostly do it the old way and just use the present.
Maybe also because we have yet another opportunity to use our beloved werden… the passive voice. But before we get to that I want to quickly mention one very common idiom, which is a good example for how close the becoming-werden and the future werden really are…
- Das wird schon.
- It‘ll be alright.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is used to reassure people when they stress about something… for instance your classmate is worried that he or she might not pass the test… then you can say “Das wird schon”. It sounds really nice. It kind of has a built in “Don’t worry”… . Now, although I translated it using the English future tense, to me this is actually more the becoming werden... mainly because there is no other verb in there. But it doesn’t matter after all.
- I become…
- I will be…
Those are the same just with a different focus… become focuses on the process of “evolving”, will be focuses on the result. And with those 2 points of view, we can now dive right into the passive.
werden – the passive
The passive voice is a grammatical role reversal. Sounds abstract. Is abstract. In fact, passive is one of the last things kids learn in their native language BECAUSE it is so abstract. Imagine a 3 year old watching mom open the box of the frozen piz… mix flour, yeast and olive oil for the pizza dough… what does the toddler see?
- Mama makes pizza.
- A pizza is being made by mama.
The second example is soooo much more complicated because the passive artificially switches grammatical roles while the real roles remain the same. What do I mean by grammatical roles? Well, for many activities, like reading, seeing, buying or opening we have to have at least 2 participants. First, we need someone who does it. In linguistics they call that agent but we’ll call it the do-er. On the other hand we’ve got to have something that is being read, seen or bought and we’ll cal the done to-er. Do-er and done to-er are roles in the real world. They have little to do with grammar.
Now, in a normal sentence the do-er will have the grammatical role of a subject and the done to-er will be in the role of the direct object.
- I read a book.
And the passive reverses the grammatical roles.
- The book is being read by me.
The book is still the done to-er but it is the grammatical subject now.
Okay… and… why should we do such a thing anyway? Why make things complicated?
Well, for this example it is not really useful, but passive is neat and handy whenever the do-er is unknown or uninteresting or if the effect, the result matters…. I’ll just do one example…
- The diamonds were stolen last night…. sound more elegant than
- Someone stole the diamonds last night.
So… passive may be abstract but it’s good to have it. And all languages I know of do have a way to build it. English as well as all the Roman languages (I don’t know how it works for Slavic languages) use the helper verb to be to form the passive.
- Thomas painted a picture.
- A picture was painted by Thomas.
German uses werden.
- Thomas hat ein Bild gemalt.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ein Bild wurde von Thomas gemalt.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
There are 2 questions that we’ll talk about the first one being of course this:
Does that tie in with the werden we already know?
Yes. It totally does. Let’s recall. Werden has at its core the idea of self development. Now, when a picture is painted it also kind of develops… just the cause is external. So it’s really not that far away. What? Oh it is?… Okay… let me try again then. We’ve seen that werden can also be a translation for to get because to get sometimes expresses development. But what about this:
- The president got elected.
- The movie got made for the fans…. THAT’S why it blows… hahahaha.. sorry… … I … I couldn’t resist
Now, what’s up with this got here? Sure, we could say that it is kind of “a change of state” which would be the same got as in “I got tired”… but the reality is, that we can simply replace it by was. Then, the sentences would be a pure passive but the meaning wouldn’t change a bit. So I hope you can see, that from “changing a state” and passive is actually the same when the reason for the change is external.
And if you’re still like… meh, I don’t get it… well, let’s remember that werden used to mean to turn.
- The sky turns dark.
Now… what is that? It is a change of state, that’s for sure. But we can also read future into this because it is obviously not dark yet. And we can even interpret this as a passive because the sky isn’t doing much. It is clouds that do the work. They cover the sky. Or let’s take this…although I don’t know if that is proper English:
- He watches the streets turn wet.
This is a change of state from dry to wet. It is also future because the streets are not wet yet. And it is clearly also passive because the street itself doesn’t squeeze out water from itself. The rain is the do-er.
So… I hope you can see that it is not too far fetched to use verb that expresses the change of state as a helper for the passive AND the future at the same time. And that is werden.
- Das Bild wird gemalt.
- The picture becomes painted.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This would be the literal translation… and it is not that wrong… the only thing is that to become doesn’t really work with an external cause.
All right.
Now the second question that is interesting is this:
So… German does it differently than many other languages…
does that have any effect on the meaning?
And the answer is yes. Using to be and using werden leads to 2 major differences.
To understand the first one we need to make a short detour… it is really short, I promise. So… for most of the actions we can put a focus either on the on going process or the completed process/ the result.
- I was doing the dishes.
- I have done the dishes.
Both sentences are set in the past but the first one focuses on my doing the dishes much more than the second one. The second one is all about the result. The dishes are done now.
Now, to be is a verb of state. It talks about how something IS. Werden on the other hand talks about how something becomes – how it IS CHANGING. So to be stresses the result, werden stresses ongoing process. That also affects the passive, mainly in present tense.
- Die Pizza wird gegessen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This is all about the process and if we want to express that in English using the state-ish to be, we must somehow add this process idea and our sentence will seem a bit complicated.
- The pizza is being eaten.
Or we could also say this, I guess…
- The pizza gets eaten.
You can try it with your own mother tongue. If passive is built using to be, then you will have to use a work around to express the German version. Now… as soon as we leave present tense, the differences begin to blur but let’s keep this for when we actually learn passive. Just keep in mind that the German werden adds this idea of ongoing change to the passive that is not there if you build it using to be.
Cool… now, there is another difference between German and languages that use to be for their passive which is really fascinating.
The thing is… to be is a pretty busy verb because in most languages it is also used for the past in one way or another. So there is a lot of overlap and that restricts the use a bit. The German werden doesn’t have that problem.
And maybe that is the reason why in German you can do some funny stuff… and by funny, I mean stuff that will drive you INSANE if you build your passive using to be. How about a passive of wollen…
- Zuviel wurde gewollt, zu wenig gemacht.
- Too much was asked for, too little has been done. (lit.)
- Too much asked for, too little done.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Too easy, you say? Well how about a passive of schlafen then
- Im Bett wird geschlafen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Yep…the passive voice of to sleep. Try that in English. If you can do it, I you will get* one case of the best German beer (*for money in a store).
But there is more about this passive of schlafen. Can you tell me, where the subject is in the German sentence? No… well that’s because there is none. If you’ve learned that German always has a subject in the sentence… well… just forget it…
All right. I think we’re done for today and we’re done with was our German Word of the Day werden. It started of as to turn but soon changed into a word with the meaning of to become. English speakers had it too, but the didn’t like it that much. Germans loved it and started using it for the future and the passive. Seems random at first but hey… as we can see by looking at the word to get, all those things are closely related and they all share the idea of change of state.
If you have any questions or suggestions about werden, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
further reading:
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“And it is clearly also passive because the street itself doesn’t squeeze out water”. Why I can’t stop laughing??????
Did you visualize a street squeezing really hard to get some drops out :)?
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is a weird  randomly repeated throughout the article (and possibly other articles too). I think it’s related to formatting like adding a different color or putting the text in bold.
For instance, here’s an exame paragraph:
Now, in a normal sentence the do-er will have the grammatical role of a subject and the done to-er will be in the role of the direct object.
I read a book.
I mean, it’s not related to ümlauts or ß.
Yeah, I saw that too :/. It’s something with spacing there.
Update: I believe it’s fixed.
Yes it is. Everything is back to normal. well done.
Love your AI pronunciation tool. However in this lesson the AI seems confused as to whether it is grading German or English.
It always takes the first version of the examples, and back in the day before I added this feature, I wasn’t always using German first. I think I fixed them all in this one now :)
Apologies if someone already mentioned this, but I found this interesting: Regarding the infamous “im Bett wird geschlafen”, in Italian we have a similar confusing construction, the so called “si impersonale” (we also have another equally confusing construction which is the “si passivante”), in which instead of using the passive, like in German, we use the reflexive to generalize a sentence (la notte si dorme = nachts wird geschlafen = at night one sleeps). Notably, in Latin the passive conjugation is used for both the passive, the reflexive and the impersonal passive/reflexive. I am no linguist but it is interesting to speculate that from it stemmed both the unpersönliches Passiv and the “si impersonale”
PS: very interesting and clear article! thank you!
Hah, I remember that from back when I was learning Italian. This form feels EXACTLY like the impersonal passive in German, even though their structures are different. I think they even have a similar bossy or slightly authoritarian vibe (correct me if I’m wrong).
How common is this “si”-passive?
As a non-expert (Italian is my mother tongue but I just studied the grammar in school, not professionally), I would consider its use in everyday spoken communication rare, but not because the construction per se is unusual or formal but rather because we rarely speak in general, broad statements when we talk to each other ( I presume this is the case for German too). when appropriate, the “si impersonale” is a completely normal way of speaking. z.b. “in quel ristorante si mangia bene” (in diesem Restaurant isst man gut), oder “si può fare” = (das)kann man machen). to me the “si impersonale” conveys universality/inevitability/rule, it can be bossy/authoritarian but not necessarily. es,see above: one eats well in that restaurant. It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact; or “lunedì si lavora” = on Mondays one works, it’s just how it is.
Ah, great examples!!
I think the si impersonale then covers “man”-phrasings and the impersonal passive.
Germans actually use “man” a lot and a subset of the population also uses imporsonal “es” phrasings a lot in spoken.
Maybe that’s a good topic for an article, but at least for the use of “man” I already have something :)
This passive sentence from the Goethe Institute’s B2 example test is driving me crazy: “In der heutigen Gesellschaft wird leider nur noch konsumiert.“ I know a reasonable translation is, “In today‘s society there is, unfortunately, nothing but consumption,“ or “Unfortunately, in today’s society we only consume,“ but I would really like a translation that uses the past participle “consumed“ as the counterpart of “konsumiert.“ Maybe it’s not possible, but I was encouraged by the ability to translate “Im Bett wird geschlafen“ as “The bed is slept in.” Any suggestions would be appreciated.
PS: Perhaps, “Unfortunately, in today’s society everything is consumed.” But that then sacrifices a better translation of “nur noch” (which itself I find hard to translate). Or, “Unfortunately, in today’s society there is nothing but what can be consumed.” Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, though.
Interesting example!
I don’t think there’s a way to include the past participle without it sounding completely artificial.
This is this weird “subject-less” passive that German has.
– Hier wird gekocht.
– Here, we cook.
– Es wurde viel getrunken.
– People drank a lot.
I think your version with “everything is consumed” changes the meaning too much. Same for the second version, though less. You’re introducing new statements about reality.
The German sentence is about what people in our society do. Your options are about what happens with “everything” and “what is there” respectively.
Thank you for taking the time to reply, Emanuel! Your examples help a lot.
Glad to hear that. ANd always happy to clear up things here, no matter what article.
I read this article for the 3rd time probably in two years. It is interesting how knowledge does come to one when they are ready to take it in. I think that is one of the great things about YDG – there is so much here (at least for an A2 like me). The passive voice just kind of clicked, and I came back here. A few weeks ago, I read someone’s comment saying that the word of the day wasn’t actually a WORD A DAY. I wanted to slap him. You were more polite. There is so much. I wonder if the person below in comments got your passive pun with “The article on passive will be written…”. :)
Yeah, there’s enough content for 2,5 years reading daily :).
Hallo Emanuel!
Super-mega toller Artikel! Leider, je mehr ich darüber nachdenke, je verwirrter werde ich. Auch über den Gebrauch im Schwedisch :), worin man drei verschiedene passive hat.
Sieh mal diese zwei passive Sätze an:
a) The portrait was painted (by Tizian).
b) The portrait was being painted (by Tizian).
Im ersten Satz wurde das Bild fertiggemahlt, aber im zweiten weiss man nicht, ob es jemals fertig wurde (würde ich glauben, English ist doch nicht meine Muttersprache). Wie würde man es auf Deutsch schreiben?
a) Das Porträt war von Tizian gemahlt.
b) das Porträt wurde von Tizian gemahlt.
Ist das richtig? Oder wie unterscheidet man zwischen den beiden Fällen?
“If passive is built using to be, then you will have to use a work around to express the German version”: Not in Spanish!:
I found this page which explains it really well, in case you are (or anyone is) interested.
Oh, that’s really interesting :).
I wonder if English speakers have trouble with these two versions or if it is intuitive to them.
Native English speaker here! I’m learning Spanish, and would say I’m at a pretty advanced level. The passive voice with “ser” and the reflexive passive both came pretty intuitively to me, but I only understood the reason why one might use “estar” after reading this comment. Thanks!
You probably know what I am about to say better than I, but your discussion of the history of “werden” awoke a fascination I have with the evolution of English and the preservation of otherwise obsolete words in old expressions and phrases. The word “wend” hangs by a thread in contemporary English, mostly by the preservation of the expression “wend our (their, his, one’s etc) way” as through a crowd, a narrative, a countryside and so forth. Unfortunately, many people unconsciously take “wend” back to an earlier meaning and say “wind our way” thus threatening the survival of the word “wend” It had origins in Old English “wendan’. See also Old High German “wenten” and Old English “windan” to twist. Bizarrely, the past tense of “wend” was “went” which managed to displace the historical past tense of “go” (gan) which was “eode” which also did not evolve from a common stem of “go”. That left poor “wend” with a narrow range of meaning and barely enough energy to survive.
Great insights and additions, thank you for sharing these :)!
What about the worden form? Are there any analogies in English? As far as I’m concerned, that form is used in the past tense as an infinitive verb?I’m a bit confused…would you be so kind as to elaborate on this)
“worden” is the ge-form of “werden”. “ge-” used to be a normal prefix, but it slowly became grammar.
In combination with a normal verb, people felt like one “ge-” is enough, so it never got added to “werden” and that’s why we say
A story on DW today included the sentence, “Dem Konsularbeamten wird vorgeworfen seinen Ehemann getötet zu haben.” Why is the dative case used here? Isn’t “Konsularbeamten” the subject of the sentence? I thought it might have something to do with the passive, so ask the question here. Thanks!!
Nice question!
It is indeed a passive, but the Konsularbeamte is the indirect object in the sentence.
Let’s take a simpler example with “vorwerfen”:
The direct object is “es” and that’s what becomes the subject in passive voice.
As you can see, “dir” is Dative in both instances because the role hasn’t changed.
In your example, the subject is “seinen Ehemann getötet zu haben”. You could rephrase it with a placeholder “es”
Does that help?
Will there be a full article on using the passive? (I couldn’t find it if there is already one). This is the one that I thought was easy, until I got to all the tenses and moods.
An article on the passive will be written eventually :).
Seriously, I don’t know why I am not touching this topic. I think I am still too “triggered” by the whole Zustandspassiv vs Vorgangspassiv stuff and how much emphasis it gets in normal teaching material.
Part of me wants to scream “FORGET ABOUT ZUSTANDSPASSIV” and just call it “adjectives” but that’s quite an extreme stance and I don’t think it does reality justice.
So yeah… I am waiting patiently for the day where I feel like “Yeah, I think I have a leveled angle now.”
I do think this distinction gets talked about too much and it confuses more than it helps. So I’ll definitely deal with the “real” passive first, the werden passive.
I can see you wrote this a long time ago and it does not have much to do with language development, but I thought you might be interested in history too. It is generally accepted by modern historians that this idea about conflict between science and religion was “fake news” introduced in the 1800s for ideological reasons.
Here is a Wikipedia article that sums up the topic, if you would like to learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
I continue to appreciate this site and all your insights on German language. I finding that the more progress I make in learning German, the more I get out of your articles. Thanks for making this.
“He watches the streets turn wet” – by itself, sounds really wrong to me, it’s missing the end of the sentence. If however you said “He watches the streets turn wet with the blood of his unicorn enemies” that would work. “He watches the streets become wet” by itself works however.
(Apologies if this has already been pointed out…) On the idea that the English “will” as intending has largely died out in favour of expressing the future, except in rare examples – I disagree! In fact, the very example you use is a good case (I would argue) of will as intent:
Now, of course, that can be used a means of portraying the future. But think of colloquial English at a bar (or pub), when someone asks “What’ll you have” and you reply “I’ll have a beer please” (both contractions are from “will”) – if a bartender replies with “oh, you will, will you?” they purposely “mishear” your “will” as a sort-of prediction (an expression of the future) and throw it back at you as though you’re presumptuous. That’s the humour of that remark (and you hear it a fair amount, especially if children express a desire for something).
So I think the willing component of “to will” is still very much latent there and it comes up in various scenarios. Its usefulness as a pun-word betrays that it still has this double-meaning.
I’d be interested to hear how many native English speakers “hear” that wanting part in that sentence. I can see it, of course, but I am not a native speaker and my German brains is prone to hearing “want” there :)
Yes absolutely, I hear it clear as day.
I don’t. For me, “I will” means I’m going to and it’s definite. If there’s any doubt then I need to add other words e.g. “I think i will” or “maybe I’ll” to soften it.
I think it’s not so much uncertainty as it is “the will” that they hear. Like a mix of “I want” and “I’m going to”.
I don’t think its there. Particularly if used in the non-contracted form .. “I will do it” would very often imply “(even though I don’t want to)”.
It depends on the context and even the intonation of the sentence, but the word “will” can most definitely express volition. Imagine the following conversation:
– I’m going to eat the last cookie.
> Oh no you won’t!
– Oh yes I will!
The “will” of the last sentence clearly conveys volition (in addition to expressing an act in the future).
Great example, perfectly shows how close “intent” and “future” really are.
So for sentences like “es wird getanzt.” Dose it mean dance will be danced or the passive form of ppl will dance, where “man” is omitted? I’m really confused
Passive of “tanzen” would be something like
– The Tango was danced by Thomas and Maria.
The example in question could technically be a passive, if “es” were referring to a dance, but here, it is an impersonal phrasing that has the same meaning as saying “people dance”.
Does that help?
OMG my German teacher says that „es wird getanzt „ is also a form of passive… so this is much more like the Spanish version “dicen que…”-impersonal phrasing, but in German it just happens to take the form of werden+p2? Thanks a million Emanuel <3
Maybe, grammatically, it is called “passive”, I wouldn’t argue with the teacher, but yeah, the “feeling” is completely different.
Passive mit preposition …Sie haben nicht erzählt…. Ich suche mehr informationen …bitte Schrieben sie ein neuer post
“Passiv mit Präpositionen”… was meinst du damit? That is not a thing in grammar.
Hi, Emmanuel! Thanks for the thorough explanation.
I only didn’t really get the meaning of “Im Bett wird geschlafen” though. Does it mean something like “One sleeps in the bed” or “The bed is the place to sleep”? Because it’s impossible to conceive that the bed “is slept by someone”.
Thanks a lot!
It means something like “The bed is for sleeping.” That’s the action that is usually performed in beds.
So it’s like your second option, not the first one :)
Just as a (late) follow up to “Im Bett wird geschlafen” … in our class today we also covered this (briefly) with “Im Urlaub wird geschalfen”…. I’m guessing you can also do it with other info- eg “Sonntags wird geschalfen”.
My question is, if its not necessary for there to be a subject, how do you know the correct conjugate of werden is wird in this sentence? I’m assuming there’s really an implied es? (Es wird im Urlaub geschalfen?)
I’m not sure if I would call it an “implied” es because that makes it sound like the “es” is normally there, but skipped, which is not the case.
But yes, it can only be third person singular. Think of this:
The “act” is singular so that’s where it comes from.
By the way…
This sounds soooo authoritarian. I think people sometimes say it half jokingly, but please please do not talk that way. It’s like putting on a Prussian helmet :)
Ich werde von Werden getötet!
So a few things
Sentences like
es wird okay
du wirst bald gesund, are not future? Because I always assumed that sein at the end is omitted, as is often with verbs that are implied. You can say it’s ‘It gets’ but it gets shows it’s a fact. ‘It gets okay after a while.’ Or getting, but that would saying something is in the process of happening. But I’m guessing It’s getting okay, you’re getting soon healthy aren’t what the sentences mean.
to be for everything is complicated, but i don’t see how werden is better at expressing the state of change than being. They both give me the sense of process.
I’m not 100% sure what you’re asking.
“werden” in the two examples you gave is present tense. Nothing is omitted. It conveys the idea of “getting, becoming”.
“to be” by itself is “stationary” so it’s not a good way to express change/devellopment.
> the bed is being slept in
easy
Doesn’t that mean that the bed is being slept in AT THIS MOMENT?
Or can it be a general statement about what is usually done with a bed?
That would mean in this moment yes – but “The bed is slept in” works as a general statement!
Ah, that’s nice to know then, thank you :)
Hey, loving your posts, they are helping me explain some concepts to students that I have absorbed more than learned… anyway, I agree with you that in the strict sense, im Bett wird geschlafen can’t be said in English. A bed is slept in is okay, but doesn’t convey the same feeling as a father telling his child to stop jumping on the bed because im Bett wird geschlafen…so in English it would be, a bed is for sleeping, which means the same, but is a different grammatical construction!
That was my feeling too. It’s a quite peculiar phrasing :). Thanks for weighing in!!