Breakdown of Bei der Einreise wird oft geschmuggelt.
oft
often
bei
at, near, with
werden
to be (passive auxiliary + past participle)
schmuggeln
to smuggle
Questions & Answers about Bei der Einreise wird oft geschmuggelt.
Why is there no subject in this sentence, not even an 'it' or 'they'?
This sentence uses the impersonal passive (unpersönliches Passiv). German uses this structure to emphasize that an action is happening, without caring who is doing it. Unlike English, which usually needs a subject like 'People smuggle' or 'There is smuggling,' German can just use the passive auxiliary wird plus the past participle geschmuggelt with no subject at all.
I learned that impersonal passive sentences use es. Why isn't it 'Bei der Einreise wird es oft geschmuggelt'?
The word es is only used as a 'dummy' subject to fill the first position and keep the conjugated verb in position two, like in Es wird oft geschmuggelt. Because the phrase Bei der Einreise already takes up the first position here, the verb wird is naturally in position two. When that happens, the dummy es drops out of the sentence completely!
Why does Einreise use the article der here? Isn't it a feminine noun?
Yes, the base noun is die Einreise. However, the preposition bei always forces the following noun into the dative case. In the dative case, the feminine article die changes to der.
Does Einreise just mean entering any place, like a room or a building?