The English and German Passive

Is there also a place filler es in English?How can we express the agent and the instrument in both languages?Does German have passive auxiliaries that correspond to get in English?These are some questions learners often ask if they learn German and English simultaneously. They often mix the structures and make mistakes.Therefore this book aimed to highlight the main differences and similarities between the Passive Voice in the two languages.After a general introduction and a theoretical part the book deals with the results of the contrastive analysis of multilingual texts examining the main features of the Passive Voice in both languages and provides us with a variety of possibilities to translate an English passive sentence into German or even reversed. It also clarifies the omissibility of the Agent Phrase and deals with the expression of the Agentive and Instrument. The conclusion summarizes all the relevant features of the Passive in English and in German and the differences between them.This book intends to give help for teachers teaching English and German and is especially useful for learners who learn these two languages.

Autorentext

Szilvia Sofhauser, Studied English and German Linguistics and Literature at University of Veszprém, Hungary. Language teacher and examiner

Klappentext

Is there also a place filler es in English? How can we express the agent and the instrument in both languages? Does German have passive auxiliaries that correspond to get in English? These are some questions learners often ask if they learn German and English simultaneously. They often mix the structures and make mistakes.Therefore this book aimed to highlight the main differences and similarities between the Passive Voice in the two languages. After a general introduction and a theoretical part the book deals with the results of the contrastive analysis of multilingual texts examining the main features of the Passive Voice in both languages and provides us with a variety of possibilities to translate an English passive sentence into German or even reversed. It also clarifies the omissibility of the Agent Phrase and deals with the expression of the Agentive and Instrument. The conclusion summarizes all the relevant features of the Passive in English and in German and the differences between them. This book intends to give help for teachers teaching English and German and is especially useful for learners who learn these two languages.