Our Favourite German Compound Nouns

If the English language is a strange mistress, then the German language is an even stranger one. One of the most glaring quirks of the lingo is the phenomenon of the compound noun, which are words often stretched out over more than 30 letters to express something that we would have to convey across a whole sentence. Haustürschlüsselloch, for example, means house door keyhole. As English speakers, the practice of amalgamating words together – without even a hyphen – seems utterly absurd, yet in reality it can arguably make conversation appear much more fluent, and also make the language more accessible to those unfamiliar with it.

I mean, why say three words when you can say one?

So, here’s a list of our favourite German compound nouns:

1) Fallschirmspringerschule

Parachute School – 28 letters

2) Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung

 

Although there is a hyphen to break this monstrous word up, at 36 letters it is one of the longest words to be found in the German dictionary. It means third party car insurance companies.

3) Massenkommunikationsdienstleistungsunternehmen

Companies providing mass communication services – 46 letters

4) Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft

 

This word is actually the name of a shipping company that has operated on Europe’s second longest river, the Danube, and in keeping with the German tendency to mash words together, it is notorious for spawning a plethora of hilariously long words.

Word such as:

5) Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

Meaning the captain of a ship belonging to the aforementioned company.

And then there’s:

6)Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenswitwe

I’m sure you get the pattern; this one means the widow of the aforementioned captain of the aforementioned company… And so on and so forth…