The recipient passive with 'bekommen', 'erhalten' and 'kriegen'
German has a second kind of passive, in which the person who receives something becomes the subject of the sentence. It is built with a verb of receiving, bekommen, erhalten or kriegen, plus a past participle: Ich bekomme ein Buch geschenkt means "I am given a book as a present". Here bekommen no longer means "to get" on its own. It works like an auxiliary, much as werden does in the ordinary passive.
English speakers often misread these sentences. Seeing bekommen plus a participle, many learners think of "getting something done" or of receiving an object that is somehow in a finished state, a "gifted book". In fact, the sentence simply describes an action done for or to the subject. English uses "I was given", "I was shown" or "the rules are explained to us" instead.
Start with an active sentence that has a person in the dative: Man erklärt uns die Regeln (someone explains the rules to us). In the recipient passive, that dative person moves into the subject slot and the verb of receiving takes over as the conjugated verb. The participle goes to the end of the clause:
- active: Man erklärt uns die Regeln.
- recipient passive: Wir bekommen die Regeln erklärt.
The thing being given, shown or explained keeps its accusative case. Whoever performs the action can be added with von, just as in the werden passive. In compound tenses the auxiliary is haben, because the receiving verb behaves like an ordinary verb: Ich habe es geschenkt bekommen, never bin ... worden.
Rule of thumb: if you can say "someone did X to me or for me" and the German verb takes a dative person, you can usually turn that person into the subject with bekommen plus the participle.
bekommen is the default. It fits speech and writing alike, and you can use it with any suitable participle: geschenkt, erklärt, gezeigt, angeboten, geschickt.
erhalten belongs to letters, emails from companies and official texts. It appears mostly with participles about sending, delivering and allocating, such as zugesandt, zugeschickt, zugeteilt and zur Verfügung gestellt.
kriegen is the everyday spoken version. It is very common among friends and family but sounds out of place in formal writing.
The construction only works with verbs that take a dative person, such as schenken, erklären, zeigen, schicken, empfehlen or anbieten. A verb with only an accusative object, such as sehen or besuchen, cannot form it. You cannot say Ich bekomme besucht for "I am visited". Use the werden passive instead: Ich werde besucht.
Do not confuse it with a similar pattern that means "to manage to get something done". With participles like repariert, sauber-type results or fertig, bekommen and kriegen often express success or failure in achieving a result. Context tells you which meaning applies.
Finally, choose the register carefully. A sentence like Sie kriegen die Rechnung zugeschickt in a business letter sounds sloppy, and erhalten in a chat with friends sounds stiff.
When someone does something to you or for you, German can make you the subject: take the dative person, make it the subject of bekommen (neutral), erhalten (formal) or kriegen (casual), and put the participle at the end. Ich bekomme etwas erklärt simply means "something is explained to me", and the perfect always uses haben.