Compound Nouns in German: How to make unendingly long words in German

In German, you can make a ton of great nouns in German just by putting other nouns together. Rhabarberbarbara showcases this very well. The examples in this tongue twister are very simple, as they don't require any extra letters between the parts of the compounds. That's how these generally work, but there are a few things you need to know about German compound nouns.

Why are German nouns so long? 

In German you can simply add words together in order to make compound nouns from them. While in English we do this with spaces between the nouns, in German there are no spaces between the parts that make up compound nouns. This results in some German nouns being incredibly long. 

Rule #1: Last Noun Decides Gender

The main rule to know is that the gender of the last noun in the compound noun dictates the gender of the entire compound noun. This is why Rhabarberbarbarabar is feminine, but Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbier is masculine.
Let's take a look at the examples from the video in order to examine this rule in more detail.

Rule #2: Adding -S

Occasionally, you have to add a few other letters in between the nouns. This doesn't happen in the story of Rhabarberbarbara, but it is something you will come across a lot.

The most common of these letters is "s". This can occasionally be used to show ownership between the nouns. Other times, it is to aid pronunciation. Some of the more common times that you use an "s" are after the following endings: -keit, -heit, -tät, -ung, and -schaft. Take a look at these examples.

-keit

-heit

-tät

-ung

-schaft

Rule #3: Adding -N or -EN

Occasionally, you will need to add an -n or -en between the words. This happens most often if the first noun ends with an -e. Check out these examples.

While there are other letters that you will sometimes need to add in the middle of your compound nouns, they don't have such solid rules for when you use them. I recommend you go out and read some German stories and articles and look for the compound nouns.

Try to break them apart and see if there are any letters that were added. If there were, what were they and why were they added? You will pick up the extra rules along the way.

What to do next

If you want to learn the German tongue twister I mentioned throughout this article, click here to read Rhabarberbarbara.

If you want to get started learning German for real, click here.