A lesson on german compound words and how to prevent long. Mark twain mentions this beast of a word in his book a tramp abroad. However, ausbruchremains a noun, just likeder bruch break. Plus, like chemical compounds, german compound words can get really complex. About 30% of compounds require a connector between the combined words. But one compound noun has proved too much for german bureaucrats, who have decided to ditch what had been celebrated as the longest word in the german tongue. It is called schottenfreude german words for the human condition and is about very long compound german words. If you stick two of them together, they can take on a whole new meaning. Noun compounds are written together for example, the german word for spy satellite is spionagesatellit. The final stem dictates whether the word is a noun or a verb. Ben schott, the undisputed king of christmas books, returns. This is completely different from how we do things in englishwe keep each stem separate.
Schott conceived of this book of german portmanteau words, compound multi syllabic behemoths in. Popular examples of german compound nouns one of my students brought this book to one of our classes. Our favourite compound nouns in european languages british. This term he notes as meaning independencedeclarations sic, which is perhaps a parchmentsaving way our own declaration of independence could have been titled. In german you can combine two or more nouns to make a new word with a different meaning. Endofterm endoftether worksheet showing german s remarkable capacity to make compound nouns out of virtually nothing. Compound nouns in german are nouns made of two or more nouns joined together into one noun. The words which open up whole new worlds of abstract understanding and are already used in english. Memorizing the nouns below will give you a good general base of german vocabulary. You can find many such composites that have become part of german vocabulary. Germanys longest compound word consigned to history. The last word in the compound determines the gender and plural form of the compound noun. One of my students brought this book to one of our classes.
The words which ambush you dressed in comic obviousness. The next time you are reading, see what compound nouns you can find. It plays well to the german languages prediction for compound nouns and provides hours of fun. German nouns have a grammatical gender, as in many related indoeuropean languages. Some german compound nouns can be comprised of many, many nouns. English books for download pdf nouns easypacelearning. As the formers last stem, brechen, is the verb to break, the final compound word keeps this movement and remains a verb. The fascinating world of german compound nouns teaching. He wasnt wrong the german language is notable for its compound nouns. We might learn greek compound nouns if we visit the book casing. Fed up with unwieldy compound nouns, younger germans are turning increasingly to catchy english words published.