A Simple Guide to German Compound Nouns

One of the reasons I decided to learn the German language was because of its compound nouns. They’re incredibly charming, but they can also be a bit tough to deal with for beginner learners.

Here’s a guide on the basics of German compound nouns, plus some impressive examples of them.

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What Are German Compound Nouns?

Compound nouns are made up of 2 or more smaller words stuck together to make a brand new one. The words could include entire or portions of nouns, verbs, adverbs or adjectives, but at least one noun should be involved.

It keeps things quite simple; where in English you’d use 2 or 3 separate words, the Germans compress everything together.

For example: Waiting Room in English is 2 words, but in German they would call it a Wartebereich or Wartezimmer .

Here are some more examples:

• Orangen (orange) + Saft (juice) = Orangensaft (orange juice)
• Mal– (from malen, to paint) + Farbe (color) = Malfarbe (paint color)
• Fahrer (driver) + Sitz (seat) = Fahrersitz (driver’s seat)

How to Build German Compound Nouns

There are a few things to remember when building a compound noun.

1. No spaces are included between each word

As you’ve seen, there are no spaces separating each individual word part in a compound noun.

This also means that only the first letter of the first word part is capitalized—everything that follows is kept in lowercase.

2. The last word determines the entire word’s gender and plurality

When you’re joining together a whole load of words of different genders, the final stem in the word decides the gender and whether or not it’s singular or plural.

So, in the case of das Bananenbrot (banana bread), the compound is a neuter word and takes das. This is because the final stem, brot (bread), is neuter, so it doesn’t matter that Banane is plural here and takes die when it is a standalone word.

Here’s another example: The word for “year” is das Jahr– a neuter noun. But season/time of year takes feminine- die Jahreszeit  because the stem of the word is Zeit and that is a feminine noun.

3. You may need to add an extra letter in between words

In das Bananenbrot, did you notice that “n” that mysteriously pops up in between Banane and Brot?

Another example is adding an “e” into der Hund and die Hütte to create die Hundehütte (kennel).

When you’re joining certain words together, you need to add an extra letter, usually just to make the pronunciation easier on your tongue. This is known as die Fuge– connector.

This is something common to all languages, you just may not have realized it was there before. They help sentences flow better by acting as a barrier between sounds which are difficult to merge together.

Try saying “an apple” versus “a apple.” “An apple” is way easier, right?

For the same reason, Germans put letters in between sounds that are too hard to put together. The only noteworthy difference in German is that the connector sound becomes part of the same word. 

You can become familiar with these rules by watching more German media and immersing yourself in the language.

How Long German Compound Nouns Can Be

There isn’t really a limit to how many letters a compound noun can be.

Combine that with the no-space rule, and you can get a whole train of letters that can be hard to write, read and speak.

You can get words like:

die Fallschirmspringerschule (parachutist school) → der Fallschirm (parachute) + der Springer (jumper) + die Schule (school)

die Nahrungsmittelunverträglichkeit (food intolerance) → das Nahrungsmittel[/fluentu-tts](food) + die Unverträglichkeit (intolerance)

And these look like child’s play when you check out some of the very long, but very real compound nouns within the German language, such as: Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft , which means “association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services.”

If you’d like to see even more absurd examples, you can check out this post.

Quick Tips on German Compound Nouns

It’s hard to imagine ever learning every word in the dictionary, let alone all those used colloquially which don’t even appear in it, so don’t worry if you don’t get all of them.

This is basically just to help you identify, understand and pick apart the complexities to make it more understandable!

Pretend it’s a word search

I know it feels like more work than your casual word search game, but it gets the job done.Scan the word and search for any term you know. If you can find just one smaller word inside the big long word that you recognize, you’re a step closer to  identifying the meaning.

Let’s take the word Rhabarberbarbarabar .

Let’s say you already knew that Rhabarber is the German word for rhubarb. You’d already be well on your way to understanding the entire word.

Add dashes between individual words

This trick has helped me break down plenty of German compound nouns. Every time you note a “word piece” within the compound noun, put a (mental or physical) dash right after it.

Like so:

Rhabarber|barbarabar

That little dash will save you so much brain power when you’re trying to declutter the entire word. It’s that much easier to break down the successive words:

Rhabarber|barbara|bar

Look for the die Fuge-  connector

As mentioned earlier, this connector letter can act as a useful borderline between each part of a compound word. When you find that stand-out letter, it can make breaking down the entire word that much easier.

Here are some examples:

e:   das Schweinefleisch (pork) → das Schwein (pig) + e + das Fleisch (flesh/meat)

n:  die Sonnenblume (the sunflower) → die Sonne (the sun) + n + die Blume (flower)

ens:  der Herzensbrecher (the heartbreaker) → das Herz (heart) + ens + der Brecher (breaker)

er:  der Bilderrahmen (picture frame) → das Bild (picture) + er + der Rahmen (frame)

s:  das Liebesleid (love’s sorrow) → die Liebe (love) + s + das Leid (sorrow)

es: das Tageslicht (daylight) → der Tag (day) + es + das Licht (light)

Think practically and visualize

This is yet another aspect of German compound nouns I adore. While many compound words are very straightforward and literal, for some, you just need a pinch of imagination (and decent sense) to realize their meaning.

When you’re struggling to figure out what a German compound noun means, my advice is to visualize the words involved. Don’t just take them at face value.

All you need to figure out what the compound noun means is already there for you, in the words themselves. You just have to practice a bit of that trademark German practicality.

Let’s take the word Handschuhe as an example.

Hand|schuhe = “hand shoes” = gloves

You can’t get more literal than that. Here’s another one that requires a bit of fun thinking: Warteschlange .

Warte|schlange = “waiting snake” = queue

Fun German Compound Nouns

Here are just 20 of the interesting compound nouns available in the German language.

Compound Noun	Word Breakdown	Meaning
die Antibabypille	Anti (anti) + Baby (baby) + Pille (pill) = "anti baby pill"	birth control / contraceptive
das Drachenfutter	Drachen (dragon) + Futter (fodder) = "dragon fodder"	apology gift
das Flugzeug	Flug (fly) + Zeug (thing) = "fly thing"	airplane
die Glühbirne	Glüh (glow) + Birne (pear) = "glow pear"	lightbulb
die Handschuhe	Hand (shoes) + Schuhe (shoes) = "hand shoes"	gloves
die Klobrille	Klo (toilet) + Brille (glasses) = "toilet glasses"	toilet seat
das Kopfkino	Kopf (head) + Kino (cinema) = "head cinema"	imagination
der Krankenwagen	Kranken (sick) + Wagen (wagon) = "sick wagon"	ambulance
der Kühlschrank	Kühl (cool) + Schrank (cupboard) = "cool cupboard"	refrigerator
die Nacktschnecke	Nackt (naked) + Schnecke (snail) = "naked snail"	slug
der Regenschirm	Regen (rain) + Schirm (shield) = "rain shield"	umbrella
der Scheinwerfer	Schein (shine) + Werfer (thrower) = "shine thrower"	headlight
die Schildkröte	Schild (shield) + Kröte (toad) = "shield toad"	turtle
die Speisekarte	Speise (dish) + Karte (card) = "dish card"	menu
der Staubsauger	Staub (dust) + Sauger (sucker) = "dust sucker"	vacuum
der Stubentiger	Stuben (room) + Tiger (tiger) = "room tiger"	house cat
die Warteschlange	Warte (waiting) + Schlange (snake) = "waiting snake"	queue
der Wasserhahn	Wasser (water) + Hahn (rooster) = "water rooster"	water faucet
das Zahnfleisch	Zahn (tooth) + Fleisch (flesh) = "tooth flesh"	gum
der Zeitgeist	Zeit (time) + Geist (ghost) = "time ghost"	spirit of the times

 

Feeling more confident about sticking German words together now? Once you’ve mastered how to create compounds, this is definitely a part of German you can enjoy.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)