Breakdown of Die Küche ist schon von meinen Mitbewohnern sauber gemacht worden.
Questions & Answers about Die Küche ist schon von meinen Mitbewohnern sauber gemacht worden.
Both are passive, but they express slightly different things:
Die Küche ist schon von meinen Mitbewohnern sauber gemacht worden.
This is present perfect passive. It focuses on the result up to now:
→ The kitchen has already been cleaned (and is now clean).Die Küche wurde schon von meinen Mitbewohnern sauber gemacht.
This is simple past passive. It focuses more on the event in the past:
→ The kitchen was already cleaned (at some past time).
In spoken German, the perfect form with ist ... worden is very common, especially in southern and western regions, similar to how English often prefers the present perfect over a simple past in some contexts.
In the present perfect passive, German needs:
- sein in the present tense (ist) – the auxiliary for the perfect, and
- worden – a special form of the participle of werden used only for the passive.
The structure is:
- sein (present) + Participle II of main verb + worden
Here:
- ist = 3rd person singular of sein
- sauber gemacht = participle construction of sauber machen
- worden = passive marker in the perfect
So: Die Küche (subject) ist (auxiliary) ... sauber gemacht (cleaned) worden (in the passive).
Both come from werden, but they are used differently:
geworden is the normal past participle of werden when it means “to become”:
- Er ist müde geworden. → He has become tired.
worden is the special participle used when werden is an auxiliary for the passive in perfect tenses:
- Die Küche ist sauber gemacht worden. → has been cleaned (passive)
Rule of thumb:
- If werden = to become, use geworden.
- If werden = passive auxiliary (to be done), use worden.
Two things are happening:
The preposition von takes the dative case.
So whatever comes after von must be in dative.Mitbewohner is plural, so you need the plural dative form.
- Masculine/neuter/feminine/plural dative of mein is:
- singular: meinem / meiner …
- plural: meinen (and noun gets an extra -n if possible)
So:
- meine Mitbewohner (nominative plural)
→ after von (dative plural): von meinen Mitbewohnern
The -n at the end of Mitbewohnern is the regular dative plural ending.
In the dative plural, most nouns in German get an extra -n (if they don’t already end in -n or -s).
- Nominative plural: meine Mitbewohner
- Dative plural: meinen Mitbewohnern
Because of the preposition von (which requires dative), the noun moves to the dative plural and gets that -n ending: Mitbewohnern.
In a passive sentence, the original direct object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence.
Active version:
- Meine Mitbewohner haben die Küche schon sauber gemacht.
- Subject: Meine Mitbewohner
- Direct object: die Küche
Passive version:
- Die Küche ist schon von meinen Mitbewohnern sauber gemacht worden.
- Now Die Küche is the subject → nominative case.
- The original subject Meine Mitbewohner becomes an optional von-phrase in the dative: von meinen Mitbewohnern.
Both von and durch can sometimes translate as “by”, but:
von is the normal preposition to mark the agent (the doer) in the passive:
- Der Brief wurde von ihr geschrieben. → The letter was written by her.
durch emphasizes the means, instrument, or cause, often like “by means of” or “through”:
- Das Problem wurde durch ein Update behoben. → The problem was fixed through an update.
With people as the doer in a normal passive, von is standard.
So here: von meinen Mitbewohnern sounds natural; durch meine Mitbewohner would be unusual and slightly off in tone.
Schon is a common adverb meaning “already”. In main clauses with normal word order (verb in 2nd position), schon usually appears in the middle field of the sentence, often after the finite verb:
- Die Küche ist schon sauber gemacht worden.
- Meine Mitbewohner haben die Küche schon sauber gemacht.
Putting schon at the very end (… gemacht worden schon) is not normal; the verb complex likes to stay together at the end in German main clauses. So it fits best where you see it: right after ist.
Sauber machen is a verb phrase meaning “to clean” (literally: “to make clean”).
In the participle, this becomes:
- sauber gemacht (not gemacht sauber)
Think of sauber here a bit like a separable “prefix” or a fixed part of the verb phrase:
- Ich mache die Küche sauber. → I clean the kitchen.
- Die Küche ist sauber gemacht worden. → The kitchen has been cleaned.
Reversing the order (gemacht sauber) is not correct in this construction.
Die Küche ist sauber.
→ This is a state description. The kitchen is clean (no mention of how it became clean).Die Küche ist sauber gemacht worden.
→ This is a passive perfect. It talks about the action that led to the current state:
The kitchen has been cleaned (by someone).
You can think of it as:
- sein + Adjective (ist sauber) → stative: just describing the condition.
- sein + Participle + worden (ist sauber gemacht worden) → eventive passive: focusing on the action that happened.
Yes, you can say:
- Die Küche wurde schon sauber gemacht.
This is simple past passive. It is correct and natural, especially in written German or in northern areas. The nuance:
wurde sauber gemacht → more neutral, event-in-the-past feeling:
The kitchen was (already) cleaned.ist sauber gemacht worden → feels more like a completed action with relevance now, similar to “has already been cleaned”.
In many contexts, especially informal ones, Germans will use the perfect form (ist ... worden), but both are grammatically fine.
Active version:
- Meine Mitbewohner haben die Küche schon sauber gemacht.
Mapping:
- Passive subject Die Küche ← Active direct object die Küche
- von meinen Mitbewohnern ← Active subject meine Mitbewohner
- ist ... sauber gemacht worden ← haben ... sauber gemacht
- schon keeps the same meaning and roughly the same position relative to the verb idea (already).
German likes to put all non-finite verb forms at the end of main clauses. Here we have three elements:
- sauber – part of the verb phrase sauber machen
- gemacht – participle of machen
- worden – passive participle of werden
The general pattern for complex verb clusters in the perfect passive is:
- Part of verb phrase + Participle of main verb + worden
So the natural order is:
- sauber gemacht worden
Reordering them (e.g. gemacht sauber worden, worden sauber gemacht) would sound wrong to a native speaker.