...a good cooperation

Ich würde die Korrektur in #1 (Artikel 'a' rein) nicht unterstützen. Was sagen die anderen? Zudem würde ich keine Substantivierung wählen. Geht das nicht anders, mit Verb? z.B.: Please pray for us to cooperate well. ?? (o.ä.)

Definitely NOT #1 (cooperation is uncountable). I would say Fels's suggestion is the most idiomatic in his context (a supporters' letter for a Christian charity?)

There are probably several threads in the archive (Suche in allen Foren) on Zusammenarbeit in the sense of good wishes for a mutual project; it seems to be something of a Floskel in contexts like business.

In general, 'cooperation' (which is indeed noncount) is often not as good a translation as just rephrasing to something like 'work well together.'

Hoping explicitly for cooperation usually implies that someone is likely to be stubborn, difficult, or uncooperative. That can of course be the case even in the context of religious or charitable projects, but it might not be very tactful to say so.

I also would not be inclined to command someone to pray for something, but rather just to suggest it. 'We/I would appreciate your prayers for ...,' 'We will be praying for ...,' 'Let's all pray for ...,' 'We invite you to join us in praying for ...,' etc. will probably come across better.

I have a lot of experience reading and writing these sort of letters and #0 is pretty standard. I thought I'd added an extra post before hm--us's to suggest 'please pray we work well together' as an alternative but it seems I didn't and hm got there first! But I really don't mind cooperation.


I would *ordinarily* agree with you, hm, about the bluntness of the request. The politer the better and the more words the better when asking for something IMO (I'm British after all; would you mind ever so terribly possibly praying for...?). But if this is indeed a 'prayer letter' then Fels's supporters will be expecting specific 'prayer points' throughout the text and won't need him to repeat the "please be so kinds" or equivalents every time.

Thank you that's really helpful.

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