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German Voices (Active/Passive/Past) Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by

This cheatsheet covers active, passive, and past tense.

This is a draft cheat sheet. It is a work in progress and is not finished yet.

Active

Formed when the subject of the sentence is clearly identified as the one performing the action.
Example
Der Lehrer erklärt die Regel.
The teacher explains the rule.
Example
Ich trinke Wasser.
I drink water.
Active voice sentences follow a straig­htf­orward subjec­t-v­erb­-object pattern, making it easy to understand who is doing what.
  

Passive

Formed by using the auxiliary verb "werden" with the past participle of the main verb.
werden­/wurden
become­/became
Example
Shakes­peare wurde in England geboren.
Shakes­peare was born in England.
Example
Die Lizenzen für D&D wurden zu teuer.
The licensing for D&D became too expensive.
Example
Ich wurde gestern von so einem Typen angerufen.
A guy called me last night.
The passive voice is used when you want to focus on what happened instead of who did it. It makes the thing that was acted on the subject of the sentence. People use it when it doesn’t matter who did the action, when they don’t know who did it, or when they want to highlight the result of the action. Also used in formal writing.
  

Past Perfect (Plusq­­ua­m­p­er­­fekt)

The past perfect is formed by using the past tense of the auxiliary verb "haben" or "sein" followed by the past participle of the main verb.
haben/­hatte
to have/had
sein/waren
to be/was
Example
Ich hatte gegessen, bevor ich zur Arbeit ging.
I had eaten before I went to work.
Example
Er war schon gegangen, als ich ankam.
He had already left when I arrived.
The past perfect tense is used to talk about something that happened before another event in the past. When talking about two past events, use the past perfect to specify that one event happened before the other with words like "nachdem" (after), "bevor" (before). These words often signal the need for the past perfect tense to clarify the timeline

Past Simple Tense (Präte­rit­um/­Imp­erfekt)

Use the imperfect when telling stories, writing formally, or talking about repeated actions in the past. For regular verbs, add -te to the stem. For irregular verbs, the stem changes.
Example (Regular)
spielen (to play) →
er spielte (he played).
Example (Irreg­ular)
gehen (to go) →
er ging (he went).
The past simple tense is used to talk about something that happened in the past, without comparing it to another event.