Breakdown of Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
Questions & Answers about Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
Selbstvertrauen is a noun, and all nouns in German are capitalized, no matter where they appear in the sentence.
Grammatically, Selbstvertrauen literally means “self-confidence” (a kind of trust in oneself). Because it names a thing/abstract concept, it is a noun, not a verb or an adjective, so it must be written with a capital S.
Selbstvertrauen is a neuter noun: das Selbstvertrauen.
In practice, it is almost always used as an uncountable abstract noun, so you very rarely see it in the plural. You usually talk about Selbstvertrauen in a general sense, not as separate countable items. So you would say:
- Ich habe viel Selbstvertrauen. – I have a lot of self-confidence.
(Not: Selbstvertrauens or anything like that in the plural.)
Both are possible, but they sound slightly different:
Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
→ Self-confidence (in general) makes me strong.
This is more general and abstract.Das Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
→ The self-confidence (e.g. a specific self-confidence, or the one I have now) makes me strong.
This sounds more specific or already known from context.
In many generic statements about abstract nouns (like Liebe, Geduld, Mut, Selbstvertrauen), German often omits the article:
- Liebe macht blind. – Love makes you blind.
- Geduld bringt Rosen. – Patience brings roses.
- Mut macht stark. – Courage makes (you) strong.
So Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark is using the same pattern.
You cannot say Selbstvertrauen ist mich stark; that is ungrammatical.
In German (as in English) there is a pattern:
- X macht Y [adjective].
→ X makes Y [adjective]. / X causes Y to be [adjective].
So:
- Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
→ Self-confidence makes me strong.
The verb machen here means “to make / to cause someone to be [adjective]”.
The verb sein (ist) does not work with this “cause” meaning. Ist just describes a state:
- Ich bin stark. – I am strong.
- Selbstvertrauen ist wichtig. – Self-confidence is important.
To express that something causes you to become strong, you need machen, not sein.
Mich is the accusative form of ich, and here it is the direct object of macht.
Structure of the sentence:
- Selbstvertrauen – subject (nominative)
- macht – verb
- mich – direct object (accusative)
- stark – object complement / predicative adjective
German case forms of ich:
- Nominative (subject): ich
- Accusative (direct object): mich
- Dative (indirect object): mir
Because “confidence makes me [something]” – I am what is being “made”, so I’m the direct object → mich.
You would use mir in dative situations like:
- Es geht mir gut. – I am doing well.
- Sie gibt mir ein Buch. – She gives me a book.
But not in this sentence.
Stark here is a predicative adjective, describing the object mich via the verb machen. Predicative adjectives in German do not take endings.
You only add endings to adjectives that directly modify a noun (attributive adjectives):
- ein starker Mann – a strong man
- das starke Kind – the strong child
- mit starkem Kaffee – with strong coffee
But after verbs like sein, werden, bleiben, or in patterns like machen + [object] + [adjective], the adjective is predicative and stays in its basic form:
- Ich bin stark. – I am strong.
- Er wird nervös. – He becomes nervous.
- Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark. – Self-confidence makes me strong.
No endings are added in these predicative positions.
Yes, you can say:
- Selbstvertrauen macht mich stärker.
Meaning:
- stark – strong
- stärker – stronger (comparative form)
Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
→ Self-confidence makes me (a) strong (person).
Selbstvertrauen macht mich stärker.
→ Self-confidence makes me stronger (than before / than I would be without it).
So stark describes a resulting state.
Stärker emphasizes an increase or comparison.
The normal word order here is:
- Subject – Verb – Object – (Adjective)
→ Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
About your alternatives:
- Selbstvertrauen macht stark mich. – Wrong. The pronoun mich should not be placed at the very end after the adjective in this simple sentence.
Macht Selbstvertrauen mich stark. – This could work only as a yes/no question (“Does self-confidence make me strong?”), but then you would need a question mark and spoken rising intonation:
- Macht Selbstvertrauen mich stark?
As a statement, German main clauses must have the conjugated verb in second position (the famous “V2 rule”):
- Selbstvertrauen (1st field) macht (2nd field / verb) mich stark (rest).
You can move other elements to the front and still keep the verb second, for emphasis:
- Mich macht Selbstvertrauen stark.
→ It’s self-confidence that makes me strong. (Emphasis on me.)
It is a regular, fully transparent sentence, not a fixed idiom.
The pattern [something] macht mich [adjective] is very productive:
- Sport macht mich glücklich. – Sport makes me happy.
- Zu wenig Schlaf macht mich müde. – Too little sleep makes me tired.
- Lärm macht mich nervös. – Noise makes me nervous.
So Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark fits into this standard pattern.
Both are close to “self-confidence” in English, but with slightly different nuances:
Selbstvertrauen – literally “trust in oneself”.
Focus: believing in your own abilities, trusting that you can do something.Selbstbewusstsein – literally “being conscious/aware of oneself”.
Focus: being aware of yourself, your value, your presence; often used for self-assuredness, sometimes with a slight nuance of being very sure of yourself.
Examples:
- Sie hat viel Selbstvertrauen. – She has a lot of self-confidence (trusts her abilities).
- Er tritt mit großem Selbstbewusstsein auf. – He appears with great self-confidence / very self-assured.
In many contexts, learners will hear both, and they can overlap, but Selbstvertrauen fits very naturally with macht mich stark, since trusting yourself is what makes you strong.
Yes, grammatically that works:
- Vertrauen in mich selbst macht mich stark.
→ Trust in myself makes me strong.
However:
- It is longer and sounds more like an explanatory phrase.
- Selbstvertrauen is the normal, idiomatic way to express that idea in one word.
So the original sentence is shorter and more natural in everyday use:
- Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark.
Selbstvertrauen almost always refers specifically to confidence in oneself (self-confidence).
For “confidence” in other things, German usually uses Vertrauen:
- Vertrauen in andere Menschen – trust in other people
- Vertrauen in das System – confidence in the system
So:
- Selbstvertrauen → confidence in yourself.
- Vertrauen → trust / confidence in someone or something else, depending on context.
You would normally use the Perfekt (spoken past) in everyday German:
- Selbstvertrauen hat mich stark gemacht.
Breakdown:
- hat – auxiliary verb (3rd person singular of haben)
- gemacht – past participle of machen
Word order: the auxiliary stays in second position, and the participle goes to the end:
- Selbstvertrauen (1st field)
- hat (2nd, the conjugated verb)
- mich stark gemacht (rest of the sentence, with gemacht at the end)
It is neutral. You can use this sentence:
- in everyday conversation
- in motivational speeches
- in written texts (articles, self-help books, etc.)
- in both spoken and written standard German
Nothing about the sentence is particularly slangy or overly formal.
Yes, many German motivational or general statements use the pattern:
[Abstract noun] + macht + mich/dich/uns + [adjective].
Examples:
- Mut macht mich stark. – Courage makes me strong.
- Erfahrung macht dich klug. – Experience makes you wise.
- Übung macht dich besser. – Practice makes you better.
- Geduld macht uns stark. – Patience makes us strong.
So Selbstvertrauen macht mich stark fits well into this common pattern used for general truths or motivational sayings.