Since February of this year, I have been helping a teen, who has no German language classes at her high school, learn German. We're using an old, but-not-too-dated-textbook once used by a local university's German Dept., grammar books from my collection of German-language fare and a book her parents purchased from the 'Dummies for...' series of skills learning. She has recently completed an exercise in the Dummies for German text regarding compound nouns, how to build them and how to determine their gender. Compared to English, German has a plethora of compound nouns, known in German as: Kompositnomen or Komposita.
Not only are compound nouns in German rather illustrative of the thing that they are describing, they are often also both very literal and rather funny.
Let me share with you some examples:
Komposita English literal translation
das Stinktier skunk stink animal
das Stachelschwein porcupine spike pig
der Strohkopf dummy straw head
der Handschuh glove hand shoe
die Nachtschnecke slug naked snail
die Glühbirne light-bulb glow pear
Languages are fascinating
ReplyDeleteTruly!
DeleteThose are so great! Makes me think of the French word for "bat" -- "la chauve-souris" -- "the bald mouse."
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! The word for 'bat' could have been included up to as it is: die Fledermaus=flutter mouse.
DeleteSometimes you can kind of hear what it means. German is so evocative.
ReplyDeleteTotally.
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