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Thursday, September 14, 2017

Translating handy and interesting double-barrelled German words for tourists

Here's a double-barrelled word on the stollen sold in Morrisons in a previous Christmas season.
The packet reads:

Multilingual sign. 

I don't know the first words. But the English is second. Military security zone. Entrance forbidden. (I would translate this as entry forbidden. Entry I would say is the act of entering. Entrance is a noun, a place, the point of entry, the opposite of an exit door; also a grand entrance, a grand act or happening or moment of entering.) 
French comes third: Zone de security militaries.  Interdiction d'entree. (Prohibition of entry.)
German at end. I can recognize the words Eintritt, meaning entry, and Verboten, meaning forbidden.
Before that Militärische Sicherheitszone. Eintrag verboten.

Stollen sold in Morrisons. That's the one I want. Luxury marzipan. The word at the top is Kuchenmeister. Master baker? 

It's coming up to Christmas when I shall be looking for German Stollen in the English supermarkets. Here's a picture of the Stollen we made from a cake kit from a supermarket a couple of years ago.


I was thinking of the Stollen when I read an old CD from Sachsen and found the word Silberstollen and several other double-barrelled words.

Problem
What do all those long words mean in German?

Answer
Often they are double barrelled words and you can recognise them and learn them by breaking the words into their component parts.

GERMAN - ENGLISH
(Notice some of these German words form plurals by adding the letter n.)
Double barrel words:

Baukunst - architecture
Dorfkirchen - village churches
Höhepunkte - highlight
kostbarer - precious
Musikfriunde - music lover 
Silberstollen - silver tunnel (think of the German stollen cake with the marzipan centre which looks like a roll or tunnel which you can buy in supermarkets at Christmas time)
zahlreiche - numerous

ENGLISH - GERMAN
Double barrel words 

architecture - Baukunst
art - Kunst  (used in the words art museum or art gallery and architecture - what a lovely phrase in English in literal translation - 'building art'!) 
Churches - Kirchen
highlight - Ho
music - Musik
silver - S i l b e r
stollen - tunnels 
village - Dorf (Think of door to a villa or dormitory town)

So, now you know a stollen is a Xmas cake from Germany sold in England at Christmas time, the word for tunnels, and you have a handy list of double-barrelled German words.

More information:
Learn languages through Duolingo.com
Trips
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/germany

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and languages.


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