The ordinary passive turns an object into a subject: De deur wordt geschilderd ("the door is being painted"). But Dutch can go one step further and passivise verbs that have no object at all — intransitive activity verbs like dansen, werken, lachen, bellen. The result is the impersonal passive: Er wordt gedanst, literally "there is danced," meaning there is dancing going on / people are dancing. There is no English sentence "There is danced," so this is one construction you cannot translate word-for-word and must instead absorb as a fixed frame: er wordt + past participle.
What the impersonal passive is for
The impersonal passive lets you report an activity while leaving the doer completely unnamed and unimportant. You are not saying who dances — you are saying that, in this place, at this time, dancing is what is happening. It puts the spotlight on the action itself, treated almost as an atmosphere or event.
This is why it shows up so often in descriptions of scenes, rules, and general goings-on: at a party, in an office, on a sign. Compare the active Ze dansen ("they dance," with a named "they") to Er wordt gedanst, which deliberately drops the "they" and presents the dancing as a bare fact about the room.
Er wordt gedanst.
There is dancing (going on). / People are dancing. No doer is named — the activity itself is the news.
Op het feest werd veel gedronken en gelachen.
At the party there was a lot of drinking and laughing. The past-tense frame is 'er werd' — though here a front phrase pushes 'er' out (see below).
In deze fabriek wordt hard gewerkt.
In this factory people work hard. / Hard work goes on in this factory.
The fixed frame: er wordt / er werd + participle
Because there is no object to promote to subject, the subject slot would be empty — and Dutch does not tolerate an empty first position. The placeholder er steps in to fill it. The verb is always worden (the passive auxiliary), and the main verb appears as a past participle, exactly as in a normal passive.
| Tense | Frame | Example |
|---|---|---|
| present | er wordt + participle | Er wordt gebeld. |
| past | er werd + participle | Er werd gelachen. |
| perfect | er is + participle + geworden* | Er is gedanst (geworden). |
| modal | er + modal + participle + worden | Er mag hier gerookt worden. |
*In the perfect, worden loses its participle geworden in the passive (just as in the ordinary passive): Er is gedanst, not Er is gedanst geworden. The everyday form is simply er is + participle.
Note that the verb is always third-person singular — wordt, werd, is — regardless of how many people are really involved. There is no plural agreement, because there is no real subject for it to agree with: er is a dummy, not a "they."
Er wordt gebeld — kun jij even opendoen?
Someone's at the door (literally 'there is being rung') — can you get it? A doorbell ringing, agent unknown and irrelevant.
Er werd hard gewerkt om de deadline te halen.
People worked hard to meet the deadline. Past tense → 'er werd'.
Er is gisteren de hele avond gedanst.
There was dancing all evening yesterday. Perfect tense → 'er is' + participle, no 'geworden'.
When er moves out of first position
Er claims the first slot only when nothing else wants it. The moment you put another element first — a time phrase, a place phrase, a question word — that element takes first position and er slides to just after the finite verb. It does not disappear; it simply moves.
Hier wordt niet gerookt.
No smoking here. (Literally 'here is not smoked'.) 'Hier' takes first position, so 'er' is dropped entirely — a place adverb can absorb its job.
Gisteren werd er flink gefeest.
Yesterday there was quite a party. 'Gisteren' is first; 'er' tucks in right after 'werd'.
Mag er hier gerookt worden?
Is smoking allowed here? In a yes/no question the verb leads, and 'er' follows it.
When a concrete place or time adverb (hier, daar, binnen) sits in first position, native speakers often drop er altogether — Hier wordt niet gerookt is more natural than Hier wordt er niet gerookt. With a fronted time phrase, er is usually kept: Gisteren werd er gedanst.
Only activity verbs qualify
Not every intransitive verb can do this. The impersonal passive works with verbs of controlled, agentive activity — things people do: dansen, werken, lachen, praten, roken, bellen, klagen, vechten, zingen. It does not work with verbs of involuntary state or change — vallen, sterven, groeien, gebeuren, bloeien — because there is no agent whose action could be passivised.
So Er wordt gewerkt is fine, but Er wordt gevallen is wrong: falling is not something you do on purpose, so there is no agent to background. This single test — is it something an agent deliberately does? — predicts almost every case.
Er wordt veel geklaagd over de nieuwe regels.
There's a lot of complaining about the new rules. 'Klagen' is an agentive activity → impersonal passive works.
Er werd gelachen toen hij binnenkwam.
There was laughter when he came in. 'Lachen' is something people do → fine.
Tijdens de wedstrijd wordt er flink gejuicht.
During the match there's a lot of cheering. Agentive activity verb → works perfectly.
How this differs from English
English has no grammatical impersonal passive. To express the same idea, English reaches for completely different machinery: a there is + gerund ("there is dancing"), a generic "people/they" ("people are dancing"), or a noun ("there was a lot of laughter"). None of these is a passive, and none maps onto the Dutch structure piece by piece.
| Dutch | Natural English | Why no literal match |
|---|---|---|
| Er wordt gedanst. | People are dancing. / There's dancing. | "There is danced" is not English. |
| Er wordt gebeld. | Someone's ringing the bell. | English supplies an agent ("someone"). |
| Er werd gelachen. | There was laughter. | English nominalises the verb. |
This mismatch is exactly why English speakers find the construction so alien — and why it's worth drilling as a frame rather than a translation. The impersonal passive is one of the most characteristically Dutch (and German) features of the grammar; producing it confidently is a real marker of an advanced speaker. For more on the dummy subject that makes it possible, see The Placeholder Subject Er.
Common Mistakes
The errors below come almost entirely from forcing an English structure onto a construction English doesn't have.
❌ Daar is gedanst de hele nacht.
Incorrect — calquing English 'there was danced' with 'is/zijn' as a copula. The frame needs the passive auxiliary 'worden': 'Er werd de hele nacht gedanst'.
✅ Er werd de hele nacht gedanst.
There was dancing all night long.
❌ Wordt gedanst op het feest.
Incorrect — the subject slot is empty; Dutch won't start a main clause with the bare verb here. You need 'er' (or a fronted phrase): 'Er wordt gedanst op het feest'.
✅ Er wordt gedanst op het feest.
There's dancing at the party.
❌ Er worden gedanst.
Incorrect — plural agreement. 'Er' is a dummy, not a real plural subject, so the verb stays singular: 'er wordt'.
✅ Er wordt gedanst.
There is dancing.
❌ Er wordt gevallen op het ijs.
Incorrect — 'vallen' is not an agentive activity (you don't fall on purpose), so it can't be passivised impersonally. Use an active sentence: 'Mensen vallen op het ijs'.
✅ Mensen vallen op het ijs.
People are falling on the ice.
❌ Er is hard gewerkt geworden.
Overbuilt — in the perfect passive 'worden' drops its own participle 'geworden'. Just 'er is' + the main participle.
✅ Er is hard gewerkt.
People have worked hard.
Key Takeaways
- The impersonal passive passivises intransitive activity verbs that have no object, reporting an action without naming who does it: Er wordt gedanst = "there is dancing / people are dancing."
- The dummy er fills the empty subject slot; the verb is worden (singular always) plus a past participle. Learn the frame er wordt / er werd + participle as a fixed unit.
- Er sits in first position only when nothing else does — a fronted place or time phrase pushes it to just after the verb, and a place adverb like hier can replace it entirely (Hier wordt niet gerookt).
- It works only with agentive activity verbs (dansen, werken, lachen, roken), never with involuntary verbs (vallen, gebeuren, sterven).
- English has no equivalent, so don't translate — produce the Dutch frame directly. This is a hallmark of advanced, idiomatic Dutch.
Now practice Dutch
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- The Passive with WordenB1 — How Dutch builds the dynamic, process passive with worden plus a past participle — De brief wordt geschreven — and why this 'something is being done' passive is grammatically separate from the resulting-state passive with zijn.
- Avoiding the Passive: Men, Je, and ReflexivesC1 — Dutch often prefers an active workaround where English would reach for the passive: a generic men, je or ze (Men zegt dat... instead of Er wordt gezegd dat...), the reflexive mediopassive (Het boek verkoopt goed, Dat laat zich raden), and laten + infinitive for causatives. The mediopassive in particular — a verb used actively but with a passive sense — is a genuine Dutch resource that English lacks.
- Er as a Repleted (Dummy) SubjectB2 — How er fills the empty subject slot in impersonal passives and weather-like constructions — a Dutch frame with no English equivalent.
- Men, Je and Ze: Expressing the ImpersonalB1 — Three ways to talk about 'people in general' without naming anyone: formal men ('one', for signs and reports), conversational generic je ('you/one', as long as no one takes it personally), and generic ze ('they', for hearsay — Ze hebben de weg afgesloten). Choosing among them is a register decision: match each to its situation — sign vs chat vs gossip vs report.
- Existential and Presentative ErA2 — Presentative er introduces a brand-new, indefinite subject onto the scene — Er is koffie, Er staan veel mensen op straat — and is omitted the moment the subject becomes definite.