Novac daje ljudima moć.

Yes:

• Novac = money, nominative singular; it is the subject
• daje = gives, 3rd person singular present
• ljudima = to people / people, dative plural; it is the indirect object or recipient
• moć = power, accusative singular; it is the direct object

So the structure is basically:

subject + verb + recipient + thing given

That is why it matches the English idea Money gives people power.

Because with a verb like davati / dati (to give), the recipient normally goes in the dative case.

• ljudima = to people
• ljude = people in the accusative

In English, people in gives people power does not visibly change form, but in Croatian it does. Croatian marks the recipient with the dative ending.

So:

• Novac daje ljudima moć = Money gives people power
• using ljude here would be grammatically wrong for this meaning

Because moć is one of those nouns whose nominative singular and accusative singular look the same.

Here it is still the direct object, so its case is accusative, but the form happens to remain moć.

That can feel strange to English speakers, because you may expect every object to look different. In Croatian, that is not always the case.

For example:

• nominative: moć
• accusative: moć
• genitive: moći

So the case is understood from the sentence structure and the verb, not only from a visible ending.

Because daje is the present tense of the imperfective verb davati, and that is the natural choice for a general truth or habitual meaning.

This sentence is not talking about one single completed act of giving. It is making a broad statement: money gives people power.

• davati → daje = imperfective, used for ongoing, repeated, or general actions
• dati → da = perfective, used for a completed act

So daje is the normal form here.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Croatian present tense often covers both:

• simple present: gives
• present continuous: is giving

In this sentence, the meaning is clearly gives, because it expresses a general statement, not an action happening right now in one specific situation.

So here:

• Novac daje ljudima moć = Money gives people power

not Money is giving people power in a literal ongoing sense.

Because Croatian does not have articles like English the and a/an.

So novac can mean:

• money
• the money

depending on context.

Likewise, moć can mean:

• power
• the power

In this sentence, the general meaning is clear without any article.

No, Croatian word order is fairly flexible because the noun endings show the grammatical roles.

The given sentence is natural and straightforward:

• Novac daje ljudima moć.

But other orders are also possible, with different emphasis, for example:

• Novac ljudima daje moć.
• Ljudima novac daje moć.

The basic meaning stays the same because:

• novac is still nominative
• ljudima is still dative
• moć is still accusative

So Croatian uses both endings and word order, while English relies much more heavily on word order alone.

Because novac is the normal standard word for money as a mass noun.

That is similar to English, where we usually say money, not moneys.

• novac = money, in a general or abstract sense
• novci = often coins, or sometimes money in a more colloquial way

So for a broad statement like this, novac is the best choice.

Yes, they look similar, and that can confuse learners.

• moć here is a noun meaning power
• moći is usually the verb meaning to be able to / can

So in this sentence, moć is definitely a noun, because it is the thing being given.

That is why:

• Novac daje ljudima moć = Money gives people power

not anything like Money gives people to be able.

A few sounds are especially worth noticing:

• c in novac is pronounced ts, not k
• lj in ljudima is a soft palatal sound, roughly like ly for an English speaker
• ć in moć is a soft ch-like sound, softer than č

Very rough English-style approximations:

• novac ≈ NO-vats
• ljudima ≈ LYU-di-ma
• moć ≈ something like moch, but with a softer final sound

These are only approximations, but they are a useful starting point.