Breakdown of Diese Mischung aus Ruhe und Leidenschaft gefällt mir, was mich stolz macht.
Questions & Answers about Diese Mischung aus Ruhe und Leidenschaft gefällt mir, was mich stolz macht.
German often expresses “to like” with the verb gefallen, which literally means “to please”.
- Diese Mischung … gefällt mir.
Literally: “This mixture pleases me.”
Natural English: “I like this mixture.”
Key point:
- With gefallen, the thing that is liked is the subject, and the person who likes it is in the dative case (here: mir).
So instead of saying “I like this mixture” (Ich mag diese Mischung), German can say “This mixture pleases me” (Diese Mischung gefällt mir). Both are correct; gefallen is just a very common pattern when reacting positively to things.
Because mir is the dative form of ich, and gefallen requires a dative object.
Pattern with gefallen:
- Subect (thing/person that pleases)
- gefällt / gefallen
- Dative (person who is pleased)
- gefällt / gefallen
Examples:
- Diese Mischung gefällt mir. – This mixture pleases me / I like this mixture.
- Subject: diese Mischung (nominative)
- Verb: gefällt
- Dative object: mir
- Dein Vorschlag gefällt ihm. – He likes your suggestion.
- Subject: dein Vorschlag
- Dative: ihm
So ich would be wrong here because ich is nominative, and gefallen needs dative for the “liker”: mir.
Here was is a relative pronoun that refers to the entire previous idea / clause, not to a single noun.
- Main idea: Diese Mischung aus Ruhe und Leidenschaft gefällt mir.
- Comment about that whole fact: …, was mich stolz macht.
So was here means something like:
- “…which (this fact) makes me proud.”
- “…and that (fact) makes me proud.”
In English, we can’t naturally use “what” here, but German uses was to refer back to a whole situation or statement, not just a single noun:
- Er hat die Prüfung bestanden, was mich sehr freut.
– He passed the exam, which makes me very happy.
Use of relative pronouns in German:
die / der / das refer back to a specific noun:
- Die Mischung, die mir gefällt, … – The mixture that I like…
was is used:
- after alles, etwas, nichts, vieles
- and to refer to an entire clause / statement / idea, not just one noun.
In our sentence, the speaker is not just referring to “Mischung” as a bare noun, but to the whole fact that this mixture of calm and passion pleases me. So was is chosen to point back to that entire fact, not just the word Mischung.
You could say:
- Diese Mischung … gefällt mir, und das macht mich stolz.
Here das is a demonstrative pronoun (and that makes me proud). But if you embed it as a relative clause right after the main clause, was is the natural choice.
German always puts a comma before a subordinate clause, and relative clauses (introduced by was, der, die, das, etc.) are a type of subordinate clause.
- …, was mich stolz macht.
This was mich stolz macht is a relative clause, giving extra information about the whole preceding statement. Therefore it must be separated from the main clause with a comma.
So the comma is there because:
- A new clause starts with was.
- That clause is subordinate (verb goes to the end: macht).
was mich stolz macht is a relative clause (more generally, a subordinate clause) with this structure:
- was – relative pronoun, subject of the clause
- mich – object (accusative, from ich)
- stolz – predicate adjective
- macht – verb at the end (standard for German subordinate clauses)
Literal structure:
- (That which) makes me proud.
Function:
- It comments on the entire preceding statement: the fact that this mixture pleases me.
- It tells us what effect that fact has on the speaker: it makes them proud.
Because Diese Mischung is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative case.
- die Mischung – feminine noun (nominative singular)
- Demonstrative article in nominative feminine singular: diese
Forms of dies- (singular):
- Masculine: dieser (Nom.)
- Neuter: dieses (Nom.)
- Feminine: diese (Nom.)
Our subject is Mischung (feminine), so:
- Diese Mischung gefällt mir. – correct (nominative subject)
- Dieser Mischung gefällt mir. – would put Mischung in dative, which doesn’t fit here.
aus often means “out of / from”, but with Mischung it’s used in the sense of “made up of / consisting of”.
- eine Mischung aus X und Y – a mixture of X and Y
The preposition aus always takes the dative case.
- aus Ruhe und Leidenschaft
- Ruhe and Leidenschaft are both feminine nouns.
- Their dative singular forms are der Ruhe, der Leidenschaft.
- But because there’s no article here, you don’t see the different ending; the noun forms look the same as nominative.
So grammatically it is:
- Mischung (nominative subject)
- aus + dative: (aus) Ruhe und Leidenschaft
Both are common abstract nouns:
Ruhe
- basic meaning: calm, quiet, peace, rest
- here: inner calmness, peacefulness, not being hectic
Leidenschaft
- basic meaning: passion, enthusiasm, strong emotion
- here: emotional intensity, strong engagement
So eine Mischung aus Ruhe und Leidenschaft suggests a balanced character or atmosphere that is both calm and passionate at the same time.
German main clauses follow the “verb-second” rule:
- Exactly one element (not necessarily a single word) comes first.
- The conjugated verb comes in second position.
- The rest of the elements follow.
In this sentence:
- First element (position 1): Diese Mischung aus Ruhe und Leidenschaft (a whole noun phrase)
- Second position: gefällt (the verb)
- Remaining element: mir (dative object)
So the structure is:
- [Diese Mischung aus Ruhe und Leidenschaft] [gefällt] [mir].
Even though the first element is quite long, it’s still just one “slot” in the sentence, so the verb correctly stays in the second slot.
In subordinate clauses, German sends the conjugated verb to the end of the clause.
The clause is was mich stolz macht, and it is subordinate because it is introduced by was and depends on the main clause.
- Main clause word order: Verb in second position
- Das macht mich stolz. – That makes me proud.
- Subordinate clause word order: Verb at the end
- …, was mich stolz macht. – …, which makes me proud.
So mich stolz macht is the normal subordinate-clause order:
- mich (object) + stolz (adjective) + macht (verb at the end).