Passieren ("to happen, to occur, to take place") is one of the first verbs you need for telling a story or reacting to news — Was ist passiert? ("What happened?") is heard dozens of times a day in German. It is a fully weak (regular) verb of the -ieren class, so its participle has no ge- (passiert, never gepassiert). But it hides the trap that catches almost every English speaker: even though it is a perfectly regular -ieren verb, it forms its Perfekt with sein, not haben — Was ist passiert?, never Was hat passiert?. A second feature worth mastering early is its dative experiencer: the person something happens to goes in the dative (Das ist mir passiert, "That happened to me").
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Präteritum | Partizip II (auxiliary) |
|---|---|---|
| passieren | passierte | passiert (ist) |
Read this as: passieren – passierte – ist passiert. Two facts to internalise:
- The participle is passiert (no ge-), as with every -ieren verb.
- The auxiliary is sein. Passieren describes a change of state — an event that comes about, that did not exist and now does. German uses sein for exactly this class: verbs of motion and of change of state (geschehen, vorkommen, entstehen, werden, aufwachen). An event "coming into being" is conceptually a transition, so sein is the logical auxiliary even though no physical motion is involved.
Präsens (present)
Passieren is almost always used in the third person — events happen, people generally do not "happen." You will mostly see passiert (singular) and passieren (plural). The full paradigm exists, but the personal forms are vanishingly rare.
| Person | Form |
|---|---|
| ich | passiere |
| du | passierst |
| er / sie / es | passiert |
| wir | passieren |
| ihr | passiert |
| sie / Sie | passieren |
So etwas passiert ständig, mach dir keine Sorgen.
Something like that happens all the time, don't worry. (informal)
Wenn du nicht aufpasst, passieren Fehler.
If you're not careful, mistakes happen. (plural subject)
Präteritum (simple past)
Regular weak: passier- + -te. In storytelling both Präteritum (passierte) and Perfekt (ist passiert) are common; in casual speech the Perfekt dominates.
| Person | Form (3rd person shown) |
|---|---|
| er / sie / es | passierte |
| sie (plural) | passierten |
Es passierte alles so schnell, dass niemand reagieren konnte.
It all happened so fast that nobody could react. (narrative)
Perfekt (present perfect)
Present of sein + passiert. This is the everyday past form and the place where the auxiliary matters most.
| Subject | Form |
|---|---|
| es / das / etwas | ist passiert |
| plural (Dinge, Fehler …) | sind passiert |
Was ist denn hier passiert?
What on earth happened here? (the textbook everyday phrase; informal)
Es sind in letzter Zeit viele Unfälle auf dieser Kreuzung passiert.
A lot of accidents have happened at this junction lately.
Plusquamperfekt (past perfect)
Past of sein (war) + passiert.
| Subject | Form |
|---|---|
| es / das | war passiert |
| plural | waren passiert |
Als die Polizei eintraf, war das Unglück schon passiert.
By the time the police arrived, the accident had already happened.
Futur I
Werden + the infinitive passieren.
| Subject | Form |
|---|---|
| es / das | wird passieren |
| plural | werden passieren |
Keine Sorge, es wird schon nichts passieren.
Don't worry, nothing's going to happen. (reassuring; informal)
Konjunktiv II (would happen / could happen)
Weak verb, so the synthetic passierte would be ambiguous with the Präteritum; the würde-form is standard. The past Konjunktiv II uses wäre + passiert, because the auxiliary is sein.
| Form | Example |
|---|---|
| present (würde-form) | es würde passieren |
| past Konjunktiv II | es wäre passiert |
Wäre das nicht passiert, hätten wir den Flug bekommen.
If that hadn't happened, we would have caught the flight. (past Konjunktiv II with wäre, because passieren takes sein)
Government and the dative experiencer
Passieren is intransitive: it has no direct object, ever. The thing that happens is the subject. To name the person affected — the one something happens to — German uses a dative experiencer:
jemandem passieren = to happen to someone
Das ist mir auch schon mal passiert, das ist nicht schlimm.
That's happened to me too once, it's no big deal. (dative mir; informal)
Pass auf, dass dir nichts passiert!
Take care that nothing happens to you! (dative dir; an everyday goodbye)
Note the false-friend warning: there is a second verb passieren meaning "to pass / go through" (a checkpoint, a border), which takes haben and an accusative — Wir haben die Grenze passiert ("We passed the border"). That sense is formal and far rarer; in everyday German "to pass by/through" is normally vorbeigehen, durchfahren or überqueren. The "happen" sense — with sein — is the one you need first. Near-synonyms for "happen" are geschehen (slightly more formal/literary, also with sein) and vorkommen ("to occur, to crop up," also sein).
Common Mistakes
❌ Was hat passiert?
Incorrect auxiliary — passieren (happen) takes sein, not haben.
✅ Was ist passiert?
What happened?
❌ Es ist ein Unfall gepassiert.
Incorrect — -ieren verbs take no ge-; the participle is passiert.
✅ Es ist ein Unfall passiert.
An accident happened.
❌ Das ist mich passiert.
Incorrect case — the experiencer is dative, so it must be mir.
✅ Das ist mir passiert.
That happened to me.
❌ Ich habe einen Fehler passiert.
Incorrect — passieren is intransitive and never takes an accusative object; the mistake is the subject.
✅ Mir ist ein Fehler passiert.
I made a mistake. (literally: a mistake happened to me)
Key Takeaways
- Principal parts: passieren – passierte – ist passiert. Weak, -ieren class, auxiliary sein.
- The participle is passiert with no ge- — like every -ieren verb.
- It forms its Perfekt with sein because it is a change-of-state verb — Was ist passiert?, never hat.
- It is intransitive: the thing that happens is the subject; the person affected goes in the dative (Das ist mir passiert).
- A rare formal homonym passieren = "to pass through" takes haben
- accusative; don't confuse it with the common "happen" sense.
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Start learning German→Related Topics
- Perfekt Auxiliary: haben vs seinA2 — How to choose between haben and sein in the German Perfekt — motion and change of state take sein, and a direct object flips it to haben.
- haben vs sein in the PerfektA2 — How to choose the right auxiliary verb in the German present perfect: haben by default, sein for intransitive motion and change-of-state verbs.
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- The Dative CaseA2 — What the dative case is, how its articles and pronouns change, and how to use it for the indirect object.
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- Weak, Strong, and Mixed VerbsA2 — The three German verb classes defined by how they form their past tense and participle — weak (-te / ge-...-t), strong (ablaut / ge-...-en), and mixed (vowel change + weak endings).