Grammar 1: passive voice

J has an impressive command of the passive voice. Today as we were discussing Watership Down I asked him to remind me who Captain Holly was. "Das ist der graue Hase, der ins Gesicht gekratzt worden ist,"* he rattled off with no hesitation. 

November 2014

I have consciously stressed the passive since the very beginning. During the early game-routines I talk about in my article, I would make an effort to reformulate as many active-voice sentences in the passive as possible and just say one right after the other (or often Friedel would do one and I the other). So for example during the tent-building-and-stuffed-animal-fetching game, we would say things like this:

Alex: Wen sollen wir jetzt holen?.
Friedel: Ja, wer soll jetzt geholt werden?

and

Alex: So. Wir haben die Katzen geholt.
Friedel: Ja, die Katzen sind geholt worden! (later + von uns)

As in the latter example, the passive reformulation was frequently artificial and cumbersome, but I didn't worry about that. I just wanted J to absorb that the exact same thing was being said in two different ways. I would do this kind of doubling in daily conversation too.

The single biggest systematic dose of hard-core passive practice J got in the early days was with this book by Arthur Geisert:

This story, which is told entirely in pictures with no text (there are several Geisert books like this), is about how the house ends up falling off the cliff and being destroyed as the result of a chain reaction initiated by a glass of milk being spilled in the kitchen. Here are the first few pages:

I made a detailed German script of the whole chain reaction, first in the active, then in the passive voice. I would read both versions to J, sometimes on different occasions, sometimes one right after the other. We have probably read both versions a couple dozen times each. (You can find the script here, feel free to copy and use; if anyone can correct or improve the German idiomatically, please do so in the comments; playgroup colleagues, I'll put the book in our lending library so you can request it). 

Another technique I still use for practicing the passive is as part of a "taskmaster daddy" schtick I do at home. I put on a mock-stern demeanor and say things like:

"Sind die Zähne schon geputzt worden? Mir kommt es vor, dass sie noch nicht geputzt worden sind. Zähne! Seid Ihr von Jamie schon geputzt worden?" [Silly-squeaky tooth voice] "Nein, wir sind noch nicht geputzt worden! Bitte bitte bitte können wir jetzt geputzt werden?"

I do the same thing in lots of situation, especially with clothes at dressing time and with food at mealtimes. Pointing J's bowl of peas for example:

"Sind die Erbsen schon aufgegessen worden? Hmmm, was sehen wir da? Wir sehen, dass die Erbsen nicht nur noch nicht aufgegessen worden sind, sie sind kaum berührt worden! Erbsen, was meint ihr: Wollt ihr gegessen werden, oder wollt ihr blöd sitzen gelassen werden?" [Silly-squeaky pea voice] "Wir wollen natürlich gegessen werden!"

Etc., the possibilities are endless. 

There's a subtle psychological dimension to the above context. By phrasing the actions in the passive, it actually takes the pressure off J as an agent who has to perform and changes the situation to one that objectively needs to happen. That somehow often enables things to go more smoothly. There is a whole range of other situations where it is useful to take pressure off the subject (literally and figuratively) in this way, not only in "bad" ones where a child accidentally breaks something:

Hoppla, ein Glas ist kaputt gemacht worden! 

But sometimes also in "good" situations. My son, for example, does not always like to be praised for things he does well. Often he likes it better when the praise is put in the passive, like this:

Das Stück ist sehr gut gespielt worden.

*He has a kind of fascination with Captain Holly, which he once explained this way: "Ich mag Hauptmann Holly so gern, weil er den anderen Kaninchen berichtet, was in der Heimat passiert ist, damit die das wissen."