Until this past summer, the word Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz was considered by many to be the world’s longest word – or at least the longest word that was actually used on a fairly regular basis. German has quite a few other long words still in use, and in fact when you look at the lists of long words from around the world, you’ll notice that German words are generally among the longest. That’s because in German, compound (or composite) words make up a large part of the vocabulary. In a previous post, we looked at how word-building works in English, where you can use prefixes and suffixes to expand outwards from one small base word. There’s another way to build words in English, and that’s by combining words into one, as you do to make compound nouns like blackboard and basketball. German is more flexible in that respect, because nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions can all be combined to make one long and descriptive word. Here are some examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen (“demonstrations of friendship”)
Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung (“speed limit”)
Siebentausendzweihundertvierundfünfzig (the number 7,254)

While the specific way German words are formed might not help you directly in learning new words for your English vocabulary, it’s very useful to think about the process, because it will give you a new perspective on many English words as well. These long German words are made up of many parts, and you can take the same approach to learning complicated English vocabulary. Focus on learning word roots to help you find the meaning of unfamiliar words; you’ll find that once you learn a root like philo- or endo- or spec- you’ll be able to decipher dozens of words just by knowing one or two word roots well. Once you have the foundation, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your vocabulary will grow!

For a humorous take on the formation of compound words in German, you might enjoy this animated clip (in German, but easy to understand when you follow the pictures) or this German comedian’s explanation of his mother tongue.