“Compound Interest”
***
Hello everyone,
And welcome to day number 21 of the Advent Calendar.
And behind today’s door is …. drumroll… a little op ed. Like, an opinion piece. Washington Post style.
So here we go:
A Shadow from the Past
Why it’s time to let go of labor unions.
Unions – The thought sends shivers down the spine of business owners and workers alike. And yet, they still are around, stiffling innovation and making workers poorer.
Nah, kidding, that’s of course not the topic :). And not my opinion.
Anyways, the real topic I want to talk could have a headline like this:
Why we need to think differently
about Compound Nouns
One of the things that German is famous and infamous for are the long words. As Mark Twain, the American writer famously said: “Some German words are so long, they have a perspective.” and he named the long compound nouns as one of the reasons for his lack of success with learning the lang… okay you know what, screw the essay style.
That Mark Twain guy probably should have put a little less energy into whining about German online, and a little more into actually understanding it.
But yeah, German is infamous for “the long words” and some people even mention it as something that makes German hard to learn. And I think it’s time for a little shift in perspective.
Because first of all, German is not the only language with compound nouns. There are many others, and Finnish for instance has extremely long ones.
But more importantly, English has them as well.
- toothbrush
- airport
- haircut
- ….
This is the exact stuff that we have in German. Two nouns slapped together to form the word for a new thing.
Now you might be like “Yeah, but those are short. English doesn’t have the crazy long ones.”
Which is true. Except, it’s kind of not.
- publication submission guidelines
- air quality monitoring station
- artificial intelligence ethics committee
Do you see what’s going on here?
These are just a bunch of nouns and words in a row that together stand form one unit and stand for one thing.
The ONLY difference to German compounds is that they’re spelled as separate words.
- Luftqualitätsüberwachungsstation
- air quality monitoring station
This is the exact same stuff.
Here, for comparison, is how that would be in French:
- Station de surveillance de la qualité de l’air
(station for surveillance of the quality of the air)
This is truly different, because here, all the nouns or elements are connected by a preposition.
But English, just like German, just kind of chains the words.
And this is pretty much the key point that want to make today.
The only difference between German and English
when it comes to compound nouns is:
A spelling convention.
And yes, of course having them spelled as separate words does make it easier to parse when reading.
But you know when that doesn’t matter?
When speaking and hearing. You do not hear the space between the words. A German compound and an English noun chain sound the exact same way, so at least in that regard, German compound nouns are a non-issue.
It’s also true that most of them, especially the ones you meet in daily life, are not actually that long.
And from experience, I can tell you that the English approach is quite confusing.
Like… toothbrush is spelled as one word but tooth fairy is two words.
Bedroom is one word, living room is two words. WHY?!
And as if that wasn’t random enough, there’s also the hyphenated ones. Like… it’s not parttime and not part time, but part-time.
There are many more such examples and this is legit extremely confusing to a language learner like me. Like… I’d prefer the German approach of just slapping them together, honestly.
I think I’m starting to rant, because I actually often make mistakes with this stuff.
So here’s the long and short of what I’m trying to say:
English speakers often think that English doesn’t have compounds. But English totally has the concept of chaining nouns together and just like in German, the last noun in the chain determines what it actually is.
The only difference is that German has decided to spell these chains as one word whilst English separates them. Except when it doesn’t.
Reading a very long German compound is cumbersome, for sure. But overall, compounds are kind of a non-issue, because most of them are short and when speaking, you just hear a chain of words, which you are familiar with from English.
So that’s it.
I hope this changed your perspective a bit and maybe even took away some anxiety.
What about you though – Were you aware of this and how similar German and English really are? And do you think compounds are difficult or did you think it when you started learning German?
Oh and if you’re not a native speaker of English, how are you faring with these spelling rules? Let me know in the comments below, and if I don’t see you there, have a great day, and bis morgen.
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Some German compound words have an s between them, as if sometimes you need a “genitive” to compound the words. Could you comment on this?
Not really. Yes, some do take an “s”, but there is not really consensus as far as I know as to whether it actually is a genitive or just a filler.
There’s no rule that I could give you for when to put the s there unfortunately.
Native English speaker here – I personally find English compounds confusing as well. I personally love that you can usually figure out these long German compound words just by breaking them down in their elements. I also think German words are far easier to spell than English.
Shame on you for union bashing! Surely you could find another example.
I know it’s not the topic and you are kidding and it’s not your opinion etc etc but find another example please and don’t perpetuate the myth that unions are bad.
This is actually supposed to be a dig against these newspapers who put out ridiculous articles like this.
There was one recently, either in the Washington Post or the Financial Times. I can’t remember what the title was, but it was something ridiculous like “Why no overtime pay is actually good for the average person” or something stupid like that.
I find it soooo incredibly stupid that I wanted to mock it, and I am positive that every single person reading this is aware of that.
The way I wrote it… it’s satire, so I don’t think calling it union bashing is fair.
I am charmed to hear you talk about English spelling rules. What rules!!! [apart from i before e except after c ….. maybe]. Don’t we like giving two fingers to rules, If there is a speed limit don’t we break it? Our culture is based on enjoying freedom, which of course actually means we like living in chaos!! :) :)
All these things have exceptions of couse and the English one is …. If there is a queue!
Happy Christmas hols to all.
Don’t we like giving two fingers to rules
I’m not so sure about that :). From my perspective as a German, I find that Americans are absolutely obsessed with rules and discussing rules. I mean, look at Football. It’s an absolute rule-fest.
And English Stackexchange is also really interesting because people there are REALLY obsessed with discussing over what’s proper English and what isn’t and stuff like “It is I” and dangling prepositions and so on get litigated over and over and over again.
Then, there’s stuff like no drinking in public, no fire crackers on New Years, no nakedness in sauna, no speed limit free stretches. In many aspects, Germany gives more freedom to people in their everyday life. The one big exception is them guns.
Oh dear, sorry my intention was self depricating humour with the queueing punchline :)
Interesting feedback though.
I was born in Herefordshire to a farming family who have been in that area for 400+ years and with a welsh connection. So I have been English/welsh for over 70 years.
I think in reality every nation in the world contains peoples with the same range of personalities, including the ‘nit-pickers’. Its the behavioural pratices, accepted norms and taboos that make culture.
Seen in the round culture is like looking at a completed jigsaw. You ‘get’ the general meaning as it were, but break up the jigsaw and it then is difficult to make sense of all the components.
In the round English culture is different to the US, but then Welsh, Scottish, and Irish cultures are also different to each other too. :)
By the way we do have fireworks at midnight newyears eve.
Hope you had a good xmas, and good luck for the new year.
Thanks for the magnificent website.
Unless I missed it, one of the mega-bonuses for the ‘all in one’ approach and why non-natives should dig it, is that the noun’s gender is based on the last noun. Thus, without me knowing much about anything, Luftqualitätsüberwachungsstation is feminine. (god…I hope so). I can’t make out the meaning but I know the gender aspect of it, and it helps me sooooo much. Reading the French version is so fractured and too much wie Die Reifen des Autos. (which will always feel plural to me I think). Thanks again!
And if anyone is interested in reading Mark Twain’s essay (in the original English) see https://www.viaggio-in-germania.de/awful-german-language.pdf . There are other sources online but this is the first I found. Tschüss! (Ich bin in der Schweiz – kein ß)
Oh, Berg-Disney-Land :). Genieß es!!
German compounds are certainly long but English word chains are not sometimes that easy to understand
Witzfindungsstörung.
(The inability to remember jokes).
Flughafenbegtūßungsfreude.
(Childish delight at being greeted at the airport).
Kühlschrankblockade.
(Staring at the refrigerator, hungry but unsure of what to eat).
Überraschungspartyüberraschungsheuchelei.
(Feigning surprise at a surprise party).
Amazing!! I didn’t know any of these :)
I just walked by a shoe store with the sigh “Barfußschuhe” and at first glance, I thought I read “Barf…” which made me chuckle. I personally love all the words glued together into one word. It gives me a laugh now and then and that keeps me young!
Those little things can really brighten the day. I had something similar happen with “fart…” but I can’t recall the word right now.
I would love to teach his dude Portuguiesisch.
Which i dont think has so many of those words glued meaning something related, if any
Doesn’t German have a parallel to the English-language question of whether to have a space, a hyphen, or nothing between the components of a compound noun: to add an “s” or not. The example “Luftqualitätsüberwachungsstation” is a good one. It’s not just four words strung together, like the English translation. There’s an extra “s” after two of the words, to show the word boundaries. But not after “Luft”!
Is there a general rule about when to add “s” between parts of a compound noun? And if so, does it come with a lot of exceptions?
And I see from Wikipedia that there other ways parts of a compound noun in German could be modified, besides adding “s”:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komposition_(Grammatik)#Fuge_und_Fugenelement_(im_Deutschen)
Wikipedia also explains when to use a hyphen in compound nouns:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komposition_(Grammatik)#Deutsche_Rechtschreibung
These various ways of hooking together words are looking more and more complicated!
I’m a native speaker of English who used to live in Sweden, in Swedish. I was talking recently about Swedish compound nouns with a friend who is a native speaker of Swedish and teaches Swedish. We both concluded that there are too many exceptions to the Swedish rule about when to add “s” between segments that the rule wasn’t terribly helpful; you just have to know the words. (Plus Swedish also uses other ways to modify parts of a compound word.)
to add an “s” or not.
This is not really something native speakers struggle with or even think about. You just know what’s needed.
I don’t think there’s a rule that’s worth the effort for learners. Maybe there’s a bunch of “if-then” cases, with exceptions, but I really wouldn’t worry about this until you’re c1. And by then, you’ll have this stuff down simply because of Sprachgefühl.
What we do struggle with is how to spell verbalized multi-word actions like “das Gitarrespielen/das Gitarre spielen/das Gitarre-Spielen”.
The first one is technically the best option, but it’s ugly and feels unnatural. I don’t even know if there is a rule (there probably is) and I absolutely don’t care and just spell it however I please (without being consistent about it).
“Part-time job”
Doesn’t the hyphen usually only happen when the compound is used as an adjective? Tell me if I’m wrong: I haven’t thought about this topic in years if not decades.
I have no idea, I never looked it up, but that would be a nice rule of thumb.
Partially correct. Compound adjectives are generally hyphenated when they precede a noun, as you noted (“part-time job”), but they are also hyphenated when they act as an adverb modifying the verb (“He works part-time”). Otherwise, they are not hyphenated (“His job is part time”).
Hyphenated words also have a tendency to become unhyphenated over time. It took me years to stop writing “e-mail” instead of “email”.
All true. But I was hoping for some guidance in how to connect the words in a long German word. Sometimes a letter is required between the smaller German words, but not always. The rule seems inconsistent to this learner. Thanks.
I don’t know if there are any concise rules that are worth learning.
I think this is best picked up on the go. You should NEVER ever stop mid sentence when speaking to think about whether or not you need a connector-s for your compound. Just use one or don’t use one, no one cares as long as the conversation is moving.
I’m an English teacher and native speaker, and sometimes I still have to look up whether an English word is compound, hyphenated, etc. It never occurred to me to call it a problem though. lol
German compound words have never bothered me. They’re kind of amusing. :)
Camille
Good to know, that native speakers have trouble with it as well sometimes!
I AM a native (American) English speaker, and I have to look up which are hyphenated, which are one word, and which are two all the time. It’s a total pain in the patooch. So… I’m with you on the slap’emalltogether and letsjustget’erdone approach!
“get’erdooooone”… it’s been so long since I’ve heard that. Such a funny phrase :)
American here, I hear you. My favorite quote about English is “if you take hyphens seriously you will surely go mad.”
From Oxford University Press, they say.
I loved this, Emanuel. I remember being delighted with the long compound nouns at the beginning of learning German. I still am. They were fun to pick apart, Mark Twain notwithstanding. I also recognized immediately that English just broke the noun phrases apart … possibly because of some early dictionary or printer, maybe even Ben Caxton himself.
I enjoyed this discussion but can I please take you to task on your assertion that English works very much like German in bolting words together. You give three examples:
It is only the word “guidelines” that consists of two nouns glued together. The other words contain endings or “particles” that indicate the part of speech or function. It is not at all the same as some of the enormous words in German which consist of a string of nouns. Not that I mind the German words, indeed I find it an enjoyable challenge to try to work them out. And thanks for the Advent Calendar issues; I have enjoyed reading them.
Ah, what I actually wanted to show is that English is just stringing words together in a row. The only difference is that there’s a space while in German, it would be one long compound noun.
– air quality monitoring station
– Luftqualitätsüberwachungsstation.
We have 4 nouns in a row, and the only difference here are the spaces.
This doesn’t really help me because the times when they annoy me is during reading, and it can be quite difficult even when it’s just three words put together, especially if I don’t know one of them. Sometimes I can’t even figure out where the boundaries are between the words because I don’t know them all. I have spent minutes staring at a word before I figured out its make-up. But usually I just put it into a translator, and if I still don’t get it from the English translation, then I put it into Wiktionary which will show you the word’s make-up and explain why if it’s not obvious. Wiktionary is my #1 tip for parsing words.
It’ll come in time, trust me.
But it might actually be an interesting little tool that just takes a German text you’re reading and splits up all compounds for better legibility.
Hallo,
Some typos first:
“making worker’s poorer” (making workers poorer)
“kidding, hat’s of course not” (kidding, that’s of course not)
“Compoun nouns” (compound nouns)
“compounds nouns” (compound nouns)
“connected by preposition” (connected by a preposition)
I TOTALLY agree with you, have even mentioned this to a friend before, she told me that one of the hardest things about German was the long words, to which I replied “Not at all, why is is so different? If you just pretend the spaces are there, it’s exactly the same…”
Bis morgen!