Word
Das Startup war endlich profitabel geworden.
Meaning
The startup had finally become profitable.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Das Startup war endlich profitabel geworden.
sein
to be
werden
to become / to get (change of state)
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
endlich
at last
Questions & Answers about Das Startup war endlich profitabel geworden.
Why is the past participle geworden here instead of worden?
Because werden is used here as a main verb meaning "to become". When werden is the main verb, its past participle is geworden. If it were acting as a helping verb to form the passive voice (like in "it had been sold" / es war verkauft worden), the ge- prefix would be dropped, leaving only worden.
Why do we use war instead of hatte to form the past perfect here?
The verb werden describes a change of state. In German, verbs expressing a change of state (or motion) always build their perfect tenses with sein rather than haben. Therefore, the past perfect (Plusquamperfekt) uses the simple past of sein, which is war.
How do we know to use das for the English loanword Startup?
While there isn't a flawless rule, English loanwords often adopt the gender of their closest German equivalent. Since "the business" or "the enterprise" is das Unternehmen, das Startup takes the neuter gender.
How would I add "despite the high costs" to this sentence using trotz, fitting the current lesson's focus?