The Awful German Language (1880)

As a developer working in a German company the question of translating some domain language items into English comes up here and there. Mostly we fail because the German compound words are so f*** precise that we are unable to find short matching English translations...unfortunately our non-native devs have to learn complex words they can't barely pronounce :D

Most of the time we try to use English for technical identifiers and German for business langugage, leading to lets say "interesting" code, but it works for us.

I think the issue of German compound nouns is seriously overegged. In almost all cases, it’s essentially the same as English, except with some spaces. It’s not like suddenly a short compound word expresses something that couldn’t be in English.

This is true, but some German compound words acquire a meaning that doesn't simply derive from their component words. Well-known ones include Kindergarten and Weltschmerz. This is often the case for domain-specific terms (Gestaltpsychologie, Bildungsroman).

> Kindergarten

Don't know about that. Garten, garden, a nurturing environment for raising delicate flowers. Children's Garden. Kindergarten.

I find it really interesting that in Russian they clearly took the same concept but just made it out of Russian words instead. Kindergarten in russion is детский (children's) сад (garden).

There are other words that are straight from German, for instance бутерброд (sandwitch).