Hello everyone,
and welcome to a new episode of False Friends Explained – the series that’s all about false friends. Like Steve. Come on man, I thought we were buds!! You freaking knew I had a crush on her and yet you couldn’t help it but, … anyway, sorry guys… I just feel a bit lonely right now.
So, false friends special. And today we’ll talk about
craft vs. die Kraft
Craft is at its heart about skill. Carpentry can be a craft, or pottery, or writing. A craft beer is a beer that was brewed using hand work, skill and experience, and a crafty person is someone who is very smart and cunning.
Kraft on the other hand is not as refined.
It’s pure raw power. It’s like… craft is like this British gentleman, well dressed, well mannered, defeating you in a debate. Kraft is a Germanic warrior, unkempt, clad in fur, choking an elk while fighting Romans.
And by the way, I feel like even the sound mirrors the difference. Kraft, with the short a, just sounds much more powerful.
Anyway, clearly someone messed with the meaning of the word. So, who was it this time? German, English, both? My money is on German because German usua… what… oh…
.. it’s English, that screwed up.
The origin of the words is the same as for the words cringe, crinkle, crank and cramp – the super mega uber ancient Indo-European root *ger. The core idea of that was turning, bending and I think you can see that in all the words I just mentioned. And while we’re at it… the root is also the origin of the German word for sick/krank, which is based on the idea of someone not standing upright.
How do then Kraft and craft fit in there? As weird as it sounds, their original meaning might well have been based on the muscles curling. Just think of some buff Indo-Europeans flexing their biceps. So the original idea of the words was strength, power.
In English, this was then generalized to include mental power and then, slowly, sissified it… I mean, made it more about skill. Craft in the sense of a vehicle (spacecraft, watercraft) might be a leftover from the old power meaning but even that’s not one hundred percent proven.
Either way, the connection to power has largely been forgotten in English.
German Kraft on the other hand hasn’t changed much at all. It still is about strength and power.
- “Ich geh’ jetzt fast jeden Tag trainieren.”
“Cool! Und machst du Krafttraining oder Ausdauer?”
“Beides.” - “I work out almost every day now.”
“Cool, and do you do weights/strength or cardio.”
“Both.”
And it’s a pretty damn useful word because it’s not limited to physical strength anymore. It works for a wide range of abstract forces or powers, it’s the proper physics term for force. Let’s look at some examples…
- Die Musik hat eine unglaubliche Kraft.
- The music has an incredible energy/power.
- In der Ruhe liegt die Kraft. (idiom)
- Lit.: Strength lies in serenity.
- Slow and steady wins the race.
- Seit sie das Einhorn berührt hat, hat Maria magische Kräfte.
- Ever since she touched the unicorn, Maria has magical powers.
- Das Gesetz tritt nächste Woche in Kraft.
- The law will come into force next week.
- Die Kräfte, die beim Sprinten auf die Gelenke wirken, sind unglaublich.
- The forces that act on the joints during sprinting are incredible.
And there are loads of super useful compounds with Kraft.
- Wasser- und Windkraft können Atomkraft noch nicht komplett ersetzen.
- Energy from water and wind cannot fully replace nuclear energy yet.
- Wir haben zu wenig Arbeitskräfte.
- We don’t have enough staff (“work forces”).
- Das Zusammenspiel von Schwerkraft und Fliehkraft hält die Erde in ihrer Bahn.
- The interplay of gravity and centrifugal force is what keeps earth in its orbit.
- Die Organisation des Festivals war ein Kraftakt, aber es hat sich gelohnt.
- Organizing the festival was a feat/strenuous piece of work but it was worth it.
Oh and not to forget the wonderful Kraftfahrzeug, literally “force drive thing“, is the bureaucratic word for car. I mean, why say Auto if you can say Kraftfahrzeug.
Now, of course there are also related words. The most useful one is probably the adjective kräftig which means strong (not crafty!!!) but there are some verbs, too so let’s look at some examples:
- Du musst kräftig ziehen. Die Tür klemmt ein bisschen.
- You have to pull strongly. The door is jammed a little.
- Ich habe Appetit auf eine kräftige Rinderbrühe.
- I have a craving for a hearty beef broth.
- Entkräftet aber glücklich stehen die Bergsteiger auf dem Gipfel.
- Exhausted but happy the climber are standing on top of the summit.
- Marias Freundin hat ihre Trennung gut verkraftet.
- Maria’s friend got over her break up well.
- Der Politiker hat nochmal bekräftigt, dass er nicht antreten will.
- The politician reinforced that he is not planning to run.
(bekräftigen really only works in sense of claiming something again, not for reinforcing a wall)
Cool.
So this is Kraft and the related word, and they’re all about power in some way. What about craft then? What is craft in German?
The answer to that is not “It depends on context”.
It is “It totally depends on context.”
Yeah, I know… that wasn’t well crafted.
But seriously, there are many possible translations for craft. For carpentry or bakery you’d say they are a Handwerk, as soon as it gets a little more artsy, like gold smith or making small carvings from wood you’d say Kunsthandwerk. But a master of his craft would be Meister seines Fachs and an arts and crafts store would be called Bastelbedarfsladen or also simply Hobbyladen.
And then there’s the verb to craft. Dict.cc suggests anfertigen, von Hand anfertigen and that kind of works but they sound a bit dry, and not “crafted” as to craft. For a well crafted piece of writing you’d never say gut angefertigt. You’d say gut geschrieben, probably actually just gut.
I’m sorry I can’t give you a better answer but German just doesn’t really have an equivalent for craft.
But I don’t think you’ll need that very often anyway. Just make sure that you don’t use Kraft, because that would be really confusing.
And I think that’s it for to… oh wait. There’s a call. Lisa from Ohio, welcome to the show…
“Hey Emanuel, great topic but I have a question that keeps bugging me.”
Sure, go ahead.
“So, Kraft means power, strength and kräftig means strong. But I thought ‘stark’ means strong in German and Macht means power. Are they all synonyms??”
Pheeeeeeew, great question.
Who would win – Kraft, Macht or Stärke
Die Macht is power in sense of power over others or at least potential power over others. So Macht makes no sense for electricity for instance. But kräftigand stark... boah, that’s a tough one. You… you can’t really use them synonymously, but I think it largely comes down to which one just happened to be idiomatic in a given context.
- Es regnet stark/((kräftig)).
- It’s raining heavily.
- Vor Gebrauch kräftig/((stark))) schütteln.
- Shake well before use.
In the first one, stark is the idiomatic one and kräftig sounds odd but in the second one it’s reversed. And it’s the same for the nouns.
- Ich habe nicht genug Kraft/((Stärke)), um das Glas aufzumachen.
- Don’t have enough strength to open the jar.
- Der Politiker will Stärke/(((Kraft))) zeigen.
- The politician wants to show strength.
“Wow, that’s really messy.”
Yeah, it is. I feel like… a general trend is that the words without umlaut are more common and more often the idiomatic choice. So stark and die Kraft while kräftig and die Stärke are somewhat special. It’s by no means a rule or anything, just a little trend to go by. That’s all I can say here.
“Wow, Emanuel, you can’t translate craft, you can’t tell stark and kräftig apart… you really suck today.”
Oh… I … uh… I’m sorry
“Naaaah, just kidding. It’s cute how you apologized, though (snickering in the background).”
Haha… stop making fun of me. So… do you have any more questions?
“Nope, I think it’s all clear. Well, except what happened with Steve and that girl you had a cru….”
Hello? Lisa? Are you there? Oh, the connection was interrupted. What a pity. I really would have loved to continue this conversation.
Anyway, time to wrap this up.
This was our false friends special on craft vs Kraft and while English craft is about skill and dexterity, Kraft is about strength, power and it’s much more useful than craft. The word, I mean. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
** vocab **
die Kraft, die Kräfte – the power, force
Superkräfte – super powers
die Lehrkraft – the teaching staff member
die Arbeitskraft – the working staff member, energy put into work
die Atomkraft – nuclear energy
die Windkraft – wind energy
das Kraftwerk – the power plant
der Kraftakt – the strenuous act
die Schwerkraft – the gravity
die Fliehkraft – the centrifugal force
die Magnetkraft – the magnetic force
bekräftigen – reinforce (by making a statement again)
entkräftet – exhausted
verkraften – cope with something , get over something (for people, usually in a mental sense)
in Kraft treten – come into effect (for laws and such)
kräftig – strong, hearty (for food)
kraftlos – without power/energy (for people)
the craft – das Handwerk, Kunsthandwerk, Kunst, Fach
to craft – machen, per Hand fertigen
crafty – listig, schlau
stark – strong, intensively
die Stärke – the strength, also: starch
die Macht – the power , might
I know this is old, but I just had an insight while looking at a recipe today. One of the ingredients was “Stärkemehl” aka (Stärke). The role of this ingredient is to make the Kartoffelknödel more stiff and rigid. And this is why the same word means both “strength” and “starch”.
Exactly :)
I’m using kraft for my atelier which is about craft 100%! I admit i thought i could just replace the letter as if it’s the same anyway, like kraft should be the german version for craft.
After i found the meaning i thought kraft is more relevant due to the values i base my work on and my personal prefference.
I’m in the begining stages and i’m hesitating a bit about this word because people feel so good about critizing and they will most probably find it more relevant to believe it’s a mistake compared to a choice!
Since i’m selling furniture under this name i can’t afford this confusion, based on your material kraft has no place in a crafting context and yet many brands use it!!! even though i would love to keep the letter K i would rather stay coherent in my initiative.
What ar your thoughts on this?
Hmm… interesting dillemma. I can totally see that you’d have to explain over and over again why “kraft” is a good fit, and values, but it’s not really the truth, so it’ll wear you out having to say it over and over.
I’d actually say just admitting that it’s a mistake is a better choice. You could spin it in the direction of being honest about your work, too, so people know you’ll do a proper job because you’ll own up to your mistakes and blah blah blah…
I’d keep “Kraft” though. German looking words are trendy in a weird way in the States I feel like. I mean, just take “Uber”… that’s as German as they come. “kraft” starts a conversation (which is better than no conversation) and it is less generic than “craft”.
That said, there’s a condiment brand called Kraft in Germany. So if you ever expand here, you’ll have to compete with them :).
How about “kraftig”?
To most it will look like a weird “crafty” and maybe make them think of Scandinavian design.
Just a supposition, that ‘kräftig’ might work in context of action, where one uses his muscles, and ‘stark’ in sense of something being generally strong, not weak.
There’s actually something to that, I think. Still, there’s a lot of overlap.
“Don’t have enough strength to open the glass”
Meinst du vielleicht “jar”? Ich habe kein “glass” gesehen, das man nur mit Kraft oeffnen kann – ausser ein Fenster, das ein starker Mensch mit einem Stein zwar oeffnen koennte. (Benutzte ich da “Kraft” und “starker” in den richtigen Stellen?)
In Bezug auf “Arbeitskraft” und “Lehrkraft”, geht das auch fuer andere Berufe? ZB. “Baukraft” oder “Forschungskraft”?
Und danke fuer einen weiteren interessanten Post!
Boah, das ist mir gar nicht aufgefallen… Stimmt, “glass” heißt im Englischen “Becher aus Glas” und auf keinen Fall “Glas mit Deckel.”
Meine Praktikantin hat’s auch nicht gemerkt. Ist wahrscheinlich ein Zeichen, dass man C1 Niveau hat :D
Ops, ja klar, nicht “glass”. Lustig… meine Praktikantin Dakota hat’s auch nicht bemerkt :)
Du hast “stark” und “Kraft” richtig benutzt.
Zu deiner Frage… Forschungskraft funktioniert für mich auf jeden Fall, Baukraft klingt komisch. Ich würde sagen, man kann “-kraft” eher nicht generalisiert verwenden. Es ist einfach nicht immer idiomatisch.
Look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force and
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft, in physics its the same, SI unit is N(ewton)
One would say ,, starker Kaffee ” or ,,starker Käse” instead of kräftig?
For “Kaffee” the idiomatic one for me is without a doubt “stark”. But for “Käse” I’m not sure. So I googled it and found 3000 hits for “kräftger Käse” and “1000 for “starker Käse”. “Kräftiger” is also used by marketing every now and then, so I guess that’s the better pick there but ultimately, both work fine.
Okay so I just did the same search for coffee… I found 5000 for “kräftiger” and 49.000 for “starker”… just thought I’d mention it for completion
Thank you for the lesson, Emmanuel !
Also woud like to thank people making me able to read this blog thanks to the people who donated extra so people like me, could enjoy a free membership. Vielen Dank!!
Kraft ≈ force. Do you know if physicists, engineers and pedants avoid using Kraft in the power and energy senses to avoid the possibility of confusion with force?? Or is it just accepted that Kraft represents different concepts in Atomkraft etc. and Schwerkraft etc.? It’s hurting the tattered remnant of my brain.
“Come into force” would also be reasonable English for “in Kraft treten”.
Power is “Leistung” and energy is “Energie” (potenzielle Energie = potential energy, kinetische Energie = kinetic energy), work is “Arbeit” and momentum is “Impuls”. But the letters you use in formulas are mostly the same as in English. You can generally say that if you have a different SI unit, you will need another name for the physical quantity.
As an American scientist working in Germany, I can tell you my German scientific colleagues do not avoid the use of the word “Kraft” when talking about power and energy in the societal sense. I believe “Kraftwerk” is THE German word for “power plant”. But IMO you could just as well ask why English speakers say “power plant” and not “energy plant” or some other term–is the SI unit important when designating the factory that produces the power/energy/force used by our society? To my knowledge, there is no difference between the English expression “nuclear power” versus ” nuclear energy” when discussing societal energy issues.
I was thinking… if people really wanted to be accurate, they should call it “Stromwerk” because “Strom” is for the general public the word for (running) electric energy. And it’s also part of some related words like “Kohleverstrohmung” (making coal into current) or “Strompreis” (price for electric energy). I don’t think there’s much thought behind “Kraftwerk”. It just happened to become the word.
Oh and while we’re at it… “Kraftfahrzeug” (power vessel) is the official (law) word for car.
Hey, there… Like @Younglink I want to extend a very grateful virtual-hug to the GermanIsEasy community for being generous enough to pay a little extra so that people like me can access this incredible service for free… Your contributions are not being sucked into a void and you’ll always have a very grateful friend in Frankreich!
As a beginner, I’m finding this material useful and interesting. I couldn’t download the PDF for this one though. The last came through fine. Any hints please.
Oh, looks like something with the pdf creator is actually not working. Damn it. I have to look into that but it might take a few days.
Thanks for the feedback, by the way. It’s great to hear that these kinds of articles work for beginners, too, even though the topic might seem a bit random.
Just leaving this comment to thank the community of this wonderful blog. Thanks for the free membership :).
I think for English Stark is more power and Kraft is more strength, even in the more idiomatic expressions. For example, I don’t have the power/authority to respond to this vs I don’t have the strength to respond to the question (I’m tired). I see what you mean though, they just feel right in different expressions and it’s hard to tell why.
Mmm… You could really just about reverse that, though (especially since “Kraft” refers to various types of power or force).
Emanuel, for the example “Ich habe nicht genug Kraft/((Stärke)), um das Glas aufzumachen,” could you just as well say “Ich bin nicht stark genug…” or would that still carry the same oddness of “Stärke” there? Just wondering how much potential overlap in meaning there is between the umlaut-free forms.
To me “stark/Stärke” feels maybe a little more figurative or like a personal characteristic than “Kraft/kräftig” can be, but I’m sure there are all sorts of counterexamples.
Actually “ich bin nicht stark genug um das Glas aufzumachen” is much more idiomatic than it would be with “kräftig”. That’s what makes it extra complicated that the adjectives do NOT go in line with the nouns. I’d go ahead and say the “umlautfree” version is often the more idiomatic one for the more factual contexts. But it is really messy. I spent some time trying to find some way of making a distinction but I failed.
Yeah, I definitely thought “stark” would be totally normal and idiomatic. Just to check, how about “stark” vs. “Kraft” (so both “umlautfree” versions)? Like:
– Ich habe nicht genug Kraft, um das Glas aufzumachen.
– Ich bin nicht stark genug, um das Glas aufzumachen.
Would you say these are equally normal ways to say this?
Definitely. If I had to name a difference then I’d say that the second is more common because it sounds a bit more mundane than “Kraft haben”. But when you compare it to “Ich habe nicht genug Stärke um das Glas aufzumachen” , which sounds suuuper odd, the two are the same.