• TipRing@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I didn’t know the term for that kind of screwdriver in German, but I speak it enough that if someone asked me for one, I’d know what they meant because the name is descriptive. In English, not so much.

      • TipRing@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ok, so without looking (and forgive me my vocabulary is really lousy from disuse)

        My strategy for compound words is usually to try to break up the word, starting at the end, since mostly they are nouns with a bunch of adjectives stuck in front.

        Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

        So kapitän is easy since it’s a near cognate for captain.

        Gesellschaft looks like a word i used to know, but I can’t remember it.

        Schiffahrt - i don’t know this one, but it looks like schiff (ship) plus fahren (to go) - shipping?

        Ampf - no clue

        Donaud - I feel like this must be modifying ampf, because it doesn’t look like a word on its own, but since I don’t know ampf I am stumped.

        So my guess is someone in charge of something to do with shipping.

          • TipRing@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Ah. That makes sense, I wasn’t thinking about proper names and split the word in the wrong spot. Still i think german compound words aren’t that big of a deal once you get used to parsing them.