Word
Dieser wichtige Hinweis wäre nicht übersehen worden.
Meaning
This important clue would not have been overlooked.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Dieser wichtige Hinweis wäre nicht übersehen worden.
sein
to be
nicht
not
wichtig
important
dieser
this / that (fem.: diese, neut.: dieses)
Questions & Answers about Dieser wichtige Hinweis wäre nicht übersehen worden.
Why do we use wäre ... worden here instead of hätte ... worden?
The passive voice in German is formed with werden, which takes sein as its helping verb in perfect tenses, not haben. To make the hypothetical past (would have been), we use the Konjunktiv II form of sein, which is wäre, along with the special passive past participle worden.
Why doesn't worden have a ge- at the beginning, like geworden?
When werden is used as the helping verb to build the passive voice, its past participle is shortened to worden. You only use geworden when werden is the main verb of the sentence, meaning to become (for example, Er ist alt geworden - He has become old).
Why is the past participle of the main verb just übersehen instead of having a ge- added to it?
The verb übersehen (to overlook) has an inseparable prefix (über-). Verbs with inseparable prefixes do not take the ge- prefix when forming their past participle. For this specific verb, the infinitive and the past participle happen to look exactly the same.
Why is the adjective ending in Dieser wichtige Hinweis just -e and not -er for a masculine noun?