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On a food delivery service I see such a message:

Deine Bestellung von PIZZA_COMPANY wird ungefähr um 11:30 geliefert.

Obviously, it means (future simple): Your order from PIZZA_COMPANY will be delivered at about 11:30.

But I'm just wondering: Can this also mean the following (present continuous passive)?

Your order from PIZZA_COMPANY is being delivered at about 11:30.

I mean, when we use "wird" + verb in perfect - it is grammatically a passive voice, isn't it?

Peter Mortensen
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Dmytro Nalyvaiko
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3 Answers3

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Grammatically, the German sentence is unambiguously present passive. So the literal meaning is:

Your order from PIZZA_COMPANY is being delivered at about 11:30.

That's because in German, the present tense is used for talking about the near future or relatively sure events in the future.

The (explicit) Futur I/simple future passive version of the German sentence would be:

Deine Bestellung von PIZZA_COMPANY wird ungefähr um 11:30 geliefert werden.

The grammatical future, however, is only used for talking about the remote future or events with an uncertain date, e.g.

amadeusamadeus
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    However, this is a perfect example that sometimes you need to screw grammars: The intended meaning of "[das Bestellte] wird um [Uhrzeit] geliefert" is invariably "[your order] will be delivered around [time]", meaning that delivery will be completed around the given time, not ongoing. Grammatically, you are 100% correct. But it's the common usage that defines the meaning, not the grammar. (Unfortunately, this means that we need to learn quite a few phrasal verbs etc. in addition to grammar in order to really master a language.) – cmaster - reinstate monica Jul 03 '21 at 21:45
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The sentence

Deine Bestellung von PIZZA_COMPANY wird ungefähr um 11:30 geliefert.

which is basically

Die Bestellung wird geliefert.

is passive and specifically Vorgangspassiv which can be translated to English as a continuous form, see English analogues of Vorgangspassiv and Zustandspassiv

Independent from passive or active voice, in German language, the present tense can be used with the meaning of future if this is clear from a context that specifies a time or date in the future or a condition that will be fulfilled in the future.

Examples:

Die Bestellung wird jetzt geliefert.

or

Ich liefere jetzt die Bestellung.

both refer to now (jetzt), so the meaning is present.

Die Bestellung wird um 11:30 geliefert.

or

Ich liefere um 11:30 die Bestellung.

refer to a time in future, so the meaninng is future although the grammatical time is present tense.

The latter could be explicitly written as grammatical future:

Die Bestellung wird um 11:30 geliefert werden.

or

Ich werde um 11:30 die Bestellung liefern.

In colloquial language it is more common to use the grammatical present tense with the meaning of future indicated by some time specification.

Bodo
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Does "wird geliefert" have 2 meanings: future simple and present continuous passive voice?

Definitely, this sentence is the "Präsens" tense here and not the "Futur".

However, as amadeusamadeus already wrote, the "Präsens" tense in German language is not equivalent to the present tense in English:

In many regions of Germany, the "Präsens" tense is used for everything that did not happen in the past in spoken German.

This means that the people use the "Präsens" when German grammar would actually require "Futur I" or they use "Perfekt" when "Futur II" is required:

(Unofficial:) Morgen putze ich das Haus. (Präsens)
(Literal translation:) Tomorrow, I clean the house.
(Official German:) Morgen werde ich das Haus putzen. (Futur I)
(Correct English:) Tomorrow, I will clean the house.

(Unofficial:) Übermorgen habe ich die Toilette geputzt. (Perfekt)
(Literal translation:) The day after tomorrow, I have cleaned the bathroom.
(Official German:) Übermorgen werde ich die Toilette geputzt haben. (Futur II)
(Correct English:) The day after tomorrow, I will have cleaned the bathroom.

You can observe the trend that more and more written texts (especially in the Internet) use the "unofficial" grammar which was only used in spoken language before.

Some note about a sentence in amadeusamadeus' answer:

The grammatical future, however, is only used for talking about the remote future or events with an uncertain date

I doubt about that. At least in the region where I come from, the situation is different:

People make no difference between events in the near future and events in the remote future.

The "Futur" forms are often used to express some suspicion. But not about the future but in general:

Er wird gerade Auto fahren. (Futur I)
(Literal translation:) He will drive by car just right now.
(Instead of:) Wahrscheinlich fährt er gerade Auto. (Wahrscheinlich + Präsens)
(Correct English:) Probably, he is driving by car just right now.

Er wird vor einer Stunde losgefahren sein. (Futur II)
(Literal translation:) He will have left one hour ago.
(Instead of:) Wahrscheinlich ist er vor einer Stunde losgefahren. (Wahrscheinlich + Perfekt)
(Correct English:) Probably, he left one hour ago.

Martin Rosenau
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