Breakdown of Oft wird gefragt, welche Vorschrift gilt, bevor man auspackt.
oft
often
fragen
to ask
man
one / you (impersonal)
gelten
to be valid / to apply
bevor
before
welcher
which (question word)
werden
to be (passive auxiliary + past participle)
die Vorschrift
the regulation
auspacken
to unpack
Questions & Answers about Oft wird gefragt, welche Vorschrift gilt, bevor man auspackt.
Why is there no es in Oft wird gefragt? I thought impersonal passive sentences needed one.
You only need es as a placeholder subject if nothing else is in the first position of the sentence, like in Es wird oft gefragt. Because the adverb oft takes the first position here, the dummy es is dropped entirely.
Why is wird gefragt translated as "People often ask" instead of "It is often asked"?
The German impersonal passive focuses purely on the action itself, not on who is doing it. English doesn't use the passive voice this way as often, so translating it to the active "People ask" or "They ask" sounds much more natural in English than "It is asked".
Why does the verb gilt come at the end of welche Vorschrift gilt?
This part of the sentence is an indirect question. Indirect questions function as subordinate clauses, and in German, subordinate clauses always push their conjugated verb (like gilt) to the very end of that clause.
Could I use the passive voice for the unpacking part too, instead of using man?
Yes, you could technically say bevor ausgepackt wird (before it is unpacked). However, switching to the active voice using the impersonal pronoun man (one/you/people) is extremely common in German and prevents the sentence from sounding too stiff or overly formal.
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