Process passive (Vorgangspassiv), state passive (Zustandspassiv) and alternatives.
The present passive describes an action or process that is currently taking place.
The simple past passive is primarily used for reporting or narrating past events.
The future passive describes an action that will be performed at a later point in time.
The passive of state describes a completed action or a lasting condition.
The perfect passive indicates that an action has been completed and still has relevance to the present.
The past perfect passive describes an action that had already been completed before another past event.
The future perfect passive expresses an action that will have been completed by a specific future point.
The passive voice isn't really used very much in the German language. If you see it, it will most likely be used more in something that appears in writing than in a sentence someone speaks to you. So if you plan on having or wanting to read books printed in German or maybe a German daily newspaper, you had better get straight how the passive voice works.
It's vital to understand that there is a difference between using tenses and using the passive voice. If you want to be able to use the passive voice with German verbs, you have to know the proper phrasing. For example, a sentence in the passive voice won't always define who was doing the action and instead it might use a phrase like "von John" (by John) or if it is an inanimate object it could say "durch den wind" (by the wind).
