German compound words - pleasure for polyglots and where to meet polyglots

Problem
I was reading the instructions on a garment when I came across the German word for cotton: baumwolle. I looked at it and thought, I know the word baum, don't I?

Answers
Baum is tree in German. Wolle is wool. So now I /we know three words from the one compound word:

German - English
baum - tree
baumwolle - cotton
wolle - wool

English - German
cotton - baumwolle
tree - baum
wool - wolle

A more well-known compound word is kindergarden.

German - English
kinder - child
garten - garden
kindergarten - kindergarden (Americans would say pre-school)

English
child - kinder
garden - garten
kindergarden / pre-school - kindergarten

German - English
hosen - trousers (medieval hose)
lederhosen - leather trousers
leder - leather

English - German
hosen - trousers
leather - leder
leather trousers - lederhosen

German is largely composed of compound words.

You will see more on wine bottle labels.

German - English
trochenbeerenauslese - dry berry selection (sweet wine)
aus - out
auslese - picked out / selected
beeren - berries
trocken - dried

English - German
berries - beeren
dried - trocken
out - aus
picked out / selected - auslese

Chinese also has compounds words.

So does English. What about telephone, and microscope?

Pure pleasure for the polyglot.

You can practise deciphering and dissecting German compound words when travelling to :
Austria
Germany
Switzerland

In England and Europe many products such as food and electrical instructions are translated into multiple languages. I find that a little knowledge of German also helps me to translate Dutch.

Meetings for polyglots (speakers or learners of several languages) are held in London, England and Singapore and other countries. Look on Meetup to find a group or create your own.

Useful Websites
Austria
https://www.austria.info/uk

Germany
http://www.germany.travel/en/index.html

Singapore
visitsingapore.com

Switzerland
https://www.swiss.com

UK
visitbritain.com

POLYGLOTS WORLDWIDE
https://www.meetup.com/topics/polyglot/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

German Wine Labels: what they mean

Grapes you may know:

Quality

Well known wines:

Degrees of sweetness 

Auslese

Spatlese

sparkling - sekt
Trockenbeerenauslese
German - English
trocken - dry
beeren - berries (grapes)
aus - from
lese - harvest
Adapted (shortened and simplified into easy to understand and remember language) from Wiki:

• Deutscher Tafelwein (German table wine) is mostly consumed in the country and not exported. Used for blended wines that cannot be Qualitätswein.
• Deutscher Landwein (German country wine) comes from a larger designation and again doesn't play an important role in the export market.
• Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete (QbA) wines from a defined appellation except Liebfraumilch, which can be blended from several regions and still be called Qualitätswein.
• Prädikatswein, recently (2007) renamed from Qualitätswein mit Prädikat (QmP) wines made from grapes of higher ripeness. As ripeness increases, the fruit characteristics and price increase. Categories within Prädikatswein are Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein. These categories within Prädikatswein are solely linked to minimum requirements of potential alcohol. These may correlate with harvest time, but there are no longer legally defined harvest time restrictions.
  • Kabinett wines are made from grapes that have achieved minimum defined potential alcohol levels. Minimum requirements differ by region and grape variety. Kabinett is the first level of reserve grape selection.
  • Spätlese wines ("late harvest") are made from grapes that achieve minimum defined potential alcohol levels. Those minimum requirements differ by region and grape varietal. Spatlese is the second level of reserve grape selection.
  • Auslese wines ("select harvest") are made from grapes that have achieved minimum defined potential alcohol levels. Minimum requirements differ by region and grape varietal. Auslese is the third level of reserve grape selection.
  • Beerenauslese wines ("berry selection") are made from grapes that have achieved minimum defined potential alcohol levels. The concentration of the grape juice may have been caused/helped by a fungus Botrytis, which pierces the grape skin forcing water to drip out and remaining elements to concentrate. Due to the high potential alcohol level required for this category of ripeness, these wines are usually made into sweet wines and can make good dessert wines.
  • Trockenbeerenauslese wines ("dry berries selection") are made from grapes of an even higher potential alcohol level, generally reachable only with the help of Botrytis. The grapes used for Trockenbeerenauslese have reached an even more raisin-like state than those used for Beerenauslese. Due to the high concentration of sugar in the raisin-like grape, these wines can only be made in a sweet style and make extremely sweet, concentrated and usually quite expensive wines.
  • Eiswein (ice wine) wine is made grapes that freeze naturally on the vine and have to reach the same potential alcohol level as Beerenauslese. The grapes are harvested and pressed in the frozen state. The ice stays in the press during pressing and hence a concentrated juice flows off the press leading to higher potential alcohol levels, which in turn generally result in sweet wines due to the high potential alcohol. The taste differs from the other high-level wines since Botrytis infection is usually lower, ideally completely absent.

Abbreviated to TBA


Ice Wine - eiswein

Terms identifying the grower and producers of the wine:

• Weingut refers to a wine growing and producing estate.
• Weinkellerei refers to a bottling facility, a bottler or shipper.
• Winzergenossenschaft refers to a winemaking cooperative.
• Gutsabfüllung refers to a grower/producer wine that is estate bottled.
• Abfüller refers to a bottler or shipper.

To translate your own wine bottle label use Googletranslate
For more details on a website where you can hover over the parts of a wine label and read description:
http://www.germanwineusa.com/press-trade/read-wine-label.html

(This post under construction being updated.)