English Translation
The man was pushing a cart.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it, “The man pushed a wagen” and if it was “The man was pushing a wagen.” it would be “Der Mann wurde einen Wagen schoben.”?
German doesn’t have a past continuous like English. So when you say something in this tense, it might have the same meaning as the Past Continuous in English. But a native speaker (like @pitti42 ?) might be able to explain that better.
This sentence seems wrong to me. At least, schoben should be the infinitive (schieben) and I don’t think you can use ‘wurde’ as an auxiliary verb here. “Der Mann würde einen Wagen schieben” seems correct, but means something different from the original sentence.
EDIT: “Der Mann wurde einen wagen geschoben” also seems correct to me, but also means something else. I really think this is a case of how a certain tense is interpreted differently in different languages.
Right. There are constructs to express an ongoing action (e.g. “Der Mann war dabei, einen Wagen zu schieben”), but these are not used as often as the english continuous forms and can’t be considered equivalent. Just use the simple past or perfect tense instead, and the continuous aspect comes from context - or in this case from the fact that for a completed action you would probably use verschoben instead of geschoben.
"Der Mann wurde einen Wagen schoben.” is wrong.
Using “wurde” as an auxiliary makes it a passive form which then needs a participle: “Der Mann wurde geschoben” (= The man was pushed), which is of course something completely different. And then it also does not make sense to add an object like Wagen here.
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