One unique feature of the German language is its ability to create extremely long compound nouns. While this can seem daunting at first, it’s simply a matter of breaking down the noun into its component parts to understand its meaning. For example, Busfahrerin (Bus + fahrer + in). The first word here shows the mode of transport, the second the action (fahren = to drive), and finally the female suffix (-in) shows the gender of the driver.

German compound nouns can take one of numerous formats:

1. nouns only: der Milchmann

2. adjective + noun: die Großmutter

3. verb stem + noun: die Waschmaschine

4. Preposition + noun: die Vorlesung

Learning to interpret compound nouns:

Here is an example of a long compound noun in German:

das Fussballweltmeisterschaftsqualifikationsspiel

2. Now let us translate the independent parts:

foot-ball-world-master-ship-qualification-game

3. Now let us translate into English:

World Cup soccer qualifying game!

4. Now try to translate the following compound nouns into English:

die Blumentopferde

die Gutenachtgeschichte

die Rufnummernanzeige

der Organspenderausweis

Both Spanish and German are gendered languages which means that inanimate objects are either male or female and in the case of German even neuter. However, gender in neither of these languages is totally arbitrary as in many cases the final letter or letters of the word can be a key indicator in determining its gender.  I strongly believe it is more effective to learn the following rules and their exceptions than it is to simply learn each word with its gender.

Native speaking children of these languages learn to recognize the following gender patterns and then learn the exceptions through exposure to the language. Similarly, native English speaking children at first form the past tense by simply adding -ed to every verb. Over time however they learn that while that is the general pattern there are irregularities.

Keeping in mind that the following are guidelines only and exceptions must be memorized independently, here are some useful tips for determining gender:

For German:

1. 45% of nouns are masculine, 35% feminine, and 20% neuter

2. Gender is determined by the final word in a compound word combination:

die Bahn = die Autobahn

• Generally masculine endings:             –el, -el, -er, –ling, -ig, -ich, -or, -us

• Generally feminine endings:               -e, -in, -ung, -schaft,  -heit, -keit, –ik, -tät, -tion

• Generally neuter endings:                   -chen,-lein,-um,-ett,-o,-ment

For Spanish:

• Generally feminine endings:               -a, -ción ,-sión, -d , -umbre
• Generally masculine endings:             -o, -or, -ón, -men

• The following are also masculine:      months, numbers, languages