We have gone through the Vorgangspassiv in both the present tense, and in the present perfect and past tenses. This week, we are going to look at another passive voice structure called the Zustandspassiv. This is often a bit confusing for English speakers, but the best way to explain the difference between these two is that the Vorgangspassiv focuses on the action, and the Zustandspassiv focuses on the resulting state. The word der Zustand means "the state" or "the condition," after all.  

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Here is a classic example of this difference:

Vorgangspassiv: Die Tür wird geschlossen. (The door is being closed.)
Zustandspassiv: Die Tür ist geschlossen. (The door is closed.)

The Zustandspassiv is also called the sein-passiv because it involves sein as an auxiliary verb rather than werden:

conjugation of sein (present tense) + past participle

This means that the participle looks and functions like an adjective. Here are more examples:

So, das Gericht ist jetzt fertig gekocht.

So, the dish is now cooked.

Caption 69, Bundesländer und ihre Rezepte: Rheinland-Pfalz

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In the Vorgangspassiv, we would say Das Gericht wird jetzt gekocht, which would mean that the food is still being prepared. With sein, this sentence in the Zustandspassiv tells us that the food is ready! 

Sie sind lang und dünn und sie sind aus Holz gemacht.

They are long and thin and they are made of wood.

Captions 27-28, Deutsch mit Eylin: Denk schnell!

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Für mich ist hier gar nichts geklärt.

For me, nothing is cleared up here.

Caption 14, Heidi: Ein schlechter Tausch

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If we take the Zustandspassiv into the past tense, we have the same structure featuring sein in the preterite:

conjugation of sein (past tense) + past participle

Und das war auch sehr schön gemacht mit den ganzen Stationen.

And that was done very nicely with all of the stations.

Caption 69, Erstes Frankfurter „Schuljahr der Nachhaltigkeit“: Abschlussfeier

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Der Schuster sah verwundert auf, denn er wusste, das Fenster war geschlossen.

The Shoemaker looked up in surprise, for he knew that the window was closed.

Caption 14, Märchen: Sagenhaft Die Wichtelmänner

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Da war ich noch nicht geboren.

I wasn't born yet.

Caption 17, Nicos Weg: Heimat

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As we often experience with the perfect tense, the Zustandspassiv im Perfekt is best translated with the English simple past tense. Here is the structure and one example: 

conjugation of sein (past tense) + past participle + gewesen

Ja, ich... das ist nicht geplant gewesen, ne?

Yes, I... that was not planned, right?

Caption 6, Moses Pelham: Solo-Album

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Further Learning
Write a few simple sentences in different tenses, and then transform them using the Vorgangspassiv and Zustandspassiv. You can find more examples of these structures on Yabla German.