The simple past passive voice
To talk about actions that happened in the past without focusing on who did them, you can use the passive voice in the simple past (Präteritum). This is especially common when recounting historical events, like when cities were founded or things were invented.
To form the simple past passive, use the simple past form of werden, which is wurde, along with the past participle of the main verb.
| |
|---|
| ich wurde | wir wurden |
| du wurdest | ihr wurdet |
| er/sie/es wurde | sie/Sie wurden |
Word order in main clauses
Just like in the present tense passive, the conjugated auxiliary verb (wurde) takes the second position in a standard main clause. The past participle goes to the very end of the sentence.
Asking questions
To form a yes/no question, move wurde to the very beginning of the sentence.
For questions with a question word (like wann or wo), start with the question word, followed immediately by wurde.
Word order in subordinate clauses
When you use a subordinating conjunction like obwohl (although) or dass (that), the conjugated verb is pushed to the very end of the clause. In a past passive sentence, this means wurde goes at the end, immediately after the past participle.
