Actually, the maximum number of consonants in a row that you can have in German is not seven, but eight, as you can see in Deutschschweiz (the German-speaking and largest part of Switzerland), Angstschweiss (cold sweat, literally “sweat of fear”), or Rechtsschwenkung (right turn, which can hardly be called an unusual word). For instance, the word Durchschnitt (average) has seven consonants in a row. In the German language, one is expected to pronounce incredibly long strings of consonants in the middle of perfectly normal, daily-use words. But what really gets me is word pronunciation. As many expats living in Germany, I sympathize with Mark Twain’s impressions and fully support his recommendations, as getting rid of the useless Dative or moving the verb forward in the sentence (here is an updated critique). This term he notes as meaning 'independencedeclarations' (sic), which is perhaps a parchment-saving way our own Declaration of Independence could have been titled.After almost 20 years in the German-speaking world, I am still amazed by the German language. Twain's frustrations with learning German are well documented in his book A Tramp Abroad. And to think we English language speakers consider it a feat to verbalize 'antidisestablishmentarianism' without stumbling.Īs David Sedaris noted in his New Yorker article about learning German, this word is most astutely described as another option for 'partner' or 'lover,' but with a more transient twist: 'the person I am with today.' A more elegant, proper version of the term is lebensabschnittgefährte. What follows are 10 of our favorite seemingly-never-ending German words, which earn a spot on our list thanks to characteristics like technicality, definition, adaptation, or sheer perseverance in length.

As Mark Twain put it, 'Some German words are so long that they have perspective.' As a result, the language is rife with lanky terms. Compound words exist in many languages, but German's grammar construction in particular lends itself to easily tacking on parts to make single words stretch across a page.

Long german words in english