Breakdown of Ist der Beweis schon geprüft worden?
sein
to be
schon
already
prüfen
to check / to test
werden
to be (passive auxiliary + past participle)
der Beweis
the piece of evidence
Questions & Answers about Ist der Beweis schon geprüft worden?
Why does this sentence use worden instead of geworden?
When forming the Perfekt tense in the passive voice, German uses worden as the past participle of werden. You only use geworden when werden is the main verb of the sentence, meaning "to become" (like in "he has become a doctor"). Because this sentence is passive ("has been checked"), we drop the ge- prefix and just use worden.
Why does the sentence start with Ist instead of Hat? Doesn't the English translation say "Has"?
Yes, but German forms the Perfekt tense of the passive voice using sein (to be) as the helping verb, never haben (to have). Since the subject der Beweis (the evidence) is third-person singular, we use ist. You can think of the literal structure as "Is the evidence already checked become?".
Why do geprüft and worden both go at the end, and in that specific order?
In German yes/no questions, the conjugated verb (Ist) takes the first position. All other verb parts get pushed to the very end of the sentence. When you have two verb parts at the end of a Perfekt passive sentence, the main action (geprüft) comes first, followed by the passive helping verb (worden).
"Evidence" is an uncountable noun in English. Is der Beweis uncountable in German too?
Unlike the English word "evidence", der Beweis is a standard countable noun in German. It literally translates as "the proof". If you had multiple pieces of evidence, you would use the plural form die Beweise (the proofs) and the sentence would change to start with Sind.
Learn Ist der Beweis schon geprüft worden and more in German
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free