Top 10 German Words

[bholas]

5. Fleisch

translation: fleisch (flesh)
Fleisch

Germans are known for their practical and logical nature, but I don’t always appreciate it. For example, we English-speakers like to use words for food that are easier to swallow. Fleisch sounds a little bit too much like flesh, for my taste. Oh, and it actually means flesh, just in case you were hoping it meant something else. According to lookwayup.com, this word is used to identify both human flesh and “the flesh of animals used as food”. Cannibals and zombies aside, I wonder how many English-speaking people who move to Germany become vegetarians in response to the common terms used for pork (pig flesh), beef (cow flesh), and particularly veal (calf flesh).

[bholas]

4. Speck

translation: speck (fat)
Speck

Just when I’ve forced the ‘flesh-eating’ images out of my head, I remember that Germans call bacon “speck” which translates to “fat”. What a huge under-sell! I’m all for the famous German efficiency – but I think that this time they have really over-generalized!
According to the German-English dictionary at dict.tu-chemnitz.de, the phrase “Speck ansetzen” means “to put it on.” I’m glad I don’t have to say “I’m really putting on the bacon” whenever I worry about my weight! If you’re going to reduce bacon to the term “fat”, you might as well start calling chocolate “cellulite”.
Just in case any of you are going to argue that bacon isn’t a German food and therefore doesn’t have it’s own word, I want to point out that the word speck replaced the word “bachen,” which comes from the same word origin as “bacon”. This is according to Vikipedia, so it must be true.
I love bacon (obviously, since I am in the midst of a bacon-focussed rant). Contrast the German’s unforgivable disregard for bacon with the celebration of International Bacon Day (September 5) and the popularity of websites like the royalbaconsociety.com and baconfreak.com. The Bacon page on Facebook has over 470 ,000 fans. The Speck page? Less than 5,000. So, literally, Germans give bacon a bad name.
Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” but his buddy Francis Bacon would probably have replied, “It could be worse – the Italian word for it is lardo.”

[bholas]

3. Nudel

translation: noodle

Here’s where the Germans make up for their tragic abuse of bacon… They are famous for all sorts of food: sauerkraut, schnitzel, wieners… but did you know “noodle” was a German word? According to daube.ch, “pasta of all sorts is the domain of Italians. Nevertheless the German word noodle came [in] to use before the big impact of the Italian kitchen to the northern regions.”

[bholas]

2. Schwangerschaftverhütungsmittel

translation: schwangerschaft (pregnancy) verhütung (averting/prevention) mittel (remedy for/means).
Schwangerschaftverhütungsmittel
[IMG]http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/******s.jpg[/IMG]
In other words, a contraceptive. This is such a long word that by the time you ask someone to use one, it might be too late!

[bholas]

1. Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgaben-

übertragungsgesetz

translation: Rind (cattle) Fleisch (meat) Etikettierung(s) (labelling) Überwachung (supervision) Aufgaben (duties) Übertragun (assignment) Gesetz (law)

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübert ragungsgesetz (“Beef labelling supervision duty assignment law”) is the longest German word I could find. Basically it is an outrageously long compound word, and the German language is very comfortable with compound words, if not downright in love with them. Don’t let them intimidate you: most of the longer German words are made up of several words put together, which makes them easy to understand (if you understand German). According to participants in a forum at astrowars.com, the longest German word that is not a compound word is “Unkameradschaftlichkeit” (Unkameradschaftlichkeit is a kind of “unsporting behavior” among soldiers).
Unkameradschaftlichkeit
In contrast, the longest word in the English dictionary is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (Wikipedia). Looks like the English language wins for longest word, although one might argue that a medical term is actually Latin and universal…
My favorite long German word, which I found in a discussion at bbc.co.uk, is “Schwarzwälderkirschtortenlieferantenhut” (the hat of the black forest cake delivery person).
Schwarzwälderkirschtortenlieferantenhut Another long word, “Verbesserungsvorschlagsversammlung”, literally meaning a gathering of suggestions for improvement. As in, if you don’t agree with this list, feel free to “Mach mal einen Verbesserungsvorschlag” (make a suggestion for improvement sometime).