[baldfat]

> Bundesverfassungsgericht

I always smile seeing long German words. I just imagine some fellow American being in a public setting and having to attempt to pronounce the word. I am a horrible speller and I feel I would be so much worst if I had to spell German words.

[tinco]

Well, long German words are just contractions, so a misspelling of 'Bundesverfassungsgericht' would be 'Bundes verfassungs gericht' which roughly would be 'federal constitutional court'. So if you'd like to know how it feels spelling in this style, just try spelling federalconstitutionalcourt. In English contractions like that are rare and sound weird when pronounced, but in German there is a sort of rhythm to it that makes it fit and not sound much different (if at all) from if they were not contracted.

[gioele]

> In English contractions like that are rare and sound weird when pronounced,

English does exactly the same: "3-year mandatory contract" is pronounced as a single word. It is just a matter of writing convention.

«English word chains such as _child labour law_ may count as well, because it is merely an orthographic convention to write them as isolated words. Grammatically and phonetically they behave like one word (stress on the first syllable, plural morpheme at the end).»

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_language

[tinco]

Cool thanks, always nice to have some theory behind it. When I pronounced 'federalconstitutionalcourt' I did it like I imagined a CNN news reader would pronounce it, with big emphasis on each word. When I try as you say with stress on the first syllable it does sound more like one word, not so awkward at all.

[couchand]

Not to get too far off-topic, but the mitigating factor is that German has quite regular pronunciation. As soon as you hear a new word you likely know exactly how it's spelled.

[baldfat]

As opposed to English!!! http://mentalfloss.com/article/49960/why-english-spelling-so...

[ajmurmann]

German used to be more like that buta spelling reform in 1996 fixed many of these issues. All my spelling grades got significantly better (less terrible) once that happened.

[meatysnapper]

Thanks for nothing, Normandy!

[denzil_correa]

In Germany, if a Youtube video isn't available - it shows that the video isn't available due to an organization named GEMA. I wondered what GEMA was and promptly searched to find out this. Sigh!

> Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEMA_(German_organization)