Breakdown of Die Pakete werden sortiert und dann verpackt.
und
and
dann
then
das Paket
the package
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
Questions & Answers about Die Pakete werden sortiert und dann verpackt.
English says "are sorted," so why do we use werden instead of sind here?
In German, the passive voice that describes an action happening right now uses werden, not sein. If you said Die Pakete sind sortiert, it would mean the action is already finished and you are just describing their current state (the packages are already sorted). Because they are actively being sorted and packaged in this sentence, we use werden.
Why do both past participles, sortiert and verpackt, lack the usual ge- prefix?
Not all German past participles get a ge- at the beginning! Verbs ending in -ieren (like sortieren) never take a ge-. Similarly, verbs that start with an inseparable prefix like ver-, be-, or ent- (like verpacken) also skip the ge-.
Why isn't there a second werden before verpackt?
Because und connects two actions that share the exact same subject (Die Pakete) and the same helper verb (werden), you do not need to repeat them. You could grammatically say Die Pakete werden sortiert und sie werden dann verpackt, but dropping the repeated words is much more natural.