Breakdown of Stärke macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich.
Questions & Answers about Stärke macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich.
Yes. Stärke is a noun meaning strength (in an abstract sense). All nouns in German are capitalized, so Stärke must start with a capital letter.
It is:
- grammatical gender: feminine (die Stärke)
- singular here: Stärke (plural: Stärken, which is rare and more like "strengths")
So the sentence structure is:
- Stärke – subject (feminine noun)
- macht – verb
- die Mannschaft – object
- erfolgreich – predicate adjective describing the object
The subject is Stärke (strength), which is singular and third person.
German verb endings in the present tense:
- ich mache
- du machst
- er/sie/es macht
- wir machen
- ihr macht
- sie/Sie machen
Because Stärke is singular (like sie = she/it), the verb has to be macht (third-person singular), not machen (plural / wir / sie-Sie).
So the literal structure is: Strength makes the team successful.
Die Mannschaft is in the accusative case as the direct object of the verb macht.
Pattern:
- subject (nominative): Stärke
- verb: macht
- direct object (accusative): die Mannschaft
- object complement: erfolgreich
For feminine nouns like Mannschaft, the article is die in both nominative and accusative:
- Nominative singular: die Mannschaft
- Accusative singular: die Mannschaft
So the form die Mannschaft itself doesn’t change; we know it’s the object because Stärke is the subject doing the action.
Erfolgreich is used here as a predicate adjective, not as an adjective directly in front of a noun.
Two main uses of adjectives in German:
Attributive (before a noun, needs an ending):
- die erfolgreiche Mannschaft – the successful team
- eine erfolgreiche Mannschaft – a successful team
Predicative (after a verb like sein, werden, bleiben, machen; no ending):
- Die Mannschaft ist erfolgreich. – The team is successful.
- Stärke macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich. – Strength makes the team successful.
In predicative position (after macht), erfolgreich stays in its basic form with no ending.
Die Mannschaft ist erfolgreich means: The team is successful.
It just states a fact about the team.
Stärke macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich means: Strength makes the team successful.
This adds a cause: strength is what brings about the success.
So:
- ist erfolgreich – describes a state
- macht … erfolgreich – describes a cause-and-effect relationship (X makes Y successful)
They are related in meaning, but not equivalent.
German main clauses normally have the conjugated verb in second position (V2 rule), but almost anything can be in the first position for emphasis.
Stärke macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich.
- Focus / topic: Stärke as a general concept.
- Sounds like a general statement: Strength makes the team successful.
Die Stärke macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich.
- Now die Stärke sounds more specific: The strength (perhaps a particular form of strength, or the team’s strength).
- Emphasis shifts a bit toward a specific strength rather than the abstract idea of strength.
Both are grammatically correct; the choice mainly affects emphasis and nuance, not basic grammar.
Both Stärke and Kraft can relate to strength, but they have different nuances.
Stärke
- Often more abstract or general: strength as a quality (mental strength, character strength, team strength).
- Also used for strong points or advantages:
- Was sind deine Stärken? – What are your strengths?
Kraft
- Often more physical force or power:
- mit voller Kraft – with full force
- körperliche Kraft – physical strength
- Often more physical force or power:
In this sentence about a team being successful, Stärke sounds more natural, because we often mean overall strength (skills, tactics, cohesion), not just physical power.
Kraft macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich is grammatically fine, but it would suggest something like physical force or power is what makes them successful, which slightly changes the nuance.
Yes, Mannschaft is a feminine noun:
- singular: die Mannschaft – the team
- plural: die Mannschaften – the teams
Historically it contains Mann (man) + -schaft (like the English suffix -ship), so literally something like “man-ship” / crew / group of people working together.
In modern German, Mannschaft simply means team (sports team, crew, etc.) and its grammatical gender is feminine. There is no connection to the actual gender of the people on the team.
In German, countable singular nouns almost always need an article (unless another determiner is used). So:
- Die Mannschaft ist gut. – The team is good.
- Eine Mannschaft ist gut. – A team is good.
Just Mannschaft ist gut is normally incorrect.
In Stärke macht die Mannschaft erfolgreich, die Mannschaft refers to a specific team in the context (for example, the team we are talking about: our team, this team).
If you wanted to make a more general statement about teams in general, you would normally pluralize:
- Stärke macht Mannschaften erfolgreich. – Strength makes teams successful.
Even there, plural often uses no article when talking in general.
Yes.
- der Erfolg – success
- erfolgreich – successful
The suffix -reich is similar to -rich in English, in the sense of “full of” or “rich in”.
So erfolgreich is literally something like “rich in success”, which corresponds nicely to successful.
Yes, this is a very common and productive pattern in German:
machen + Akkusativobjekt + Adjektiv
= to make + object + adjective
Examples:
- Das macht mich glücklich. – That makes me happy.
- Die Nachricht macht ihn nervös. – The news makes him nervous.
- Geld macht viele Menschen unzufrieden. – Money makes many people dissatisfied.
- Lärm macht mich müde. – Noise makes me tired.
Your sentence fits exactly into this pattern:
- Stärke (subject)
- macht (verb)
- die Mannschaft (object)
- erfolgreich (adjective complement)
So learning this construction is very useful beyond this one example.