Breakdown of Het kasteel werd door de koning gebouwd.
worden
to become
bouwen
to build
het kasteel
the castle
door
by (agent in a passive sentence)
Questions & Answers about Het kasteel werd door de koning gebouwd.
Why does this sentence use werd instead of was?
In English, we say 'was built'. But in Dutch, the simple past passive uses the auxiliary verb worden (to become), which becomes werd in the singular past tense. If you used was (Het kasteel was gebouwd), it would mean 'The castle had been built' (past perfect passive), meaning the building was already completely finished before another event. To say an action was done in the simple past, always use werd (or werden for plural).
Why does the sentence use door to mean 'by'?
In a passive sentence, the person or thing doing the action (here, de koning) is introduced by the preposition door. While door often translates to 'through' in English, in passive sentences it is the exact equivalent of 'by'.
Why is gebouwd at the very end of the sentence?
This is the standard Dutch sentence structure. In a main clause with two verbs—here, the conjugated auxiliary verb werd and the past participle gebouwd—the conjugated verb takes the second position. The second verb (gebouwd) is kicked all the way to the end of the sentence.
How do we know gebouwd ends in a 'd' and not a 't'?