I enjoyed this for many reasons. I was sent to Austria decades ago for work. Went back to the US. Got sent again. Decided to stay. This was so long ago we had to risk being eaten by velociraptors waiting at a crosswalk (more anon).
I empathize with you. I didn’t know really any German when I moved here. One of my first “lessons” was going to a Beisl every Wednesday evening with my first wife and her aerobics group and trying to follow and then join the conversations. Very humbling.
Your rules are good! Here’s a tip: German only has six root words. All the remaining words are created by either adding prefixes, suffixes, or sticking nouns together. Yes, that’s an old joke of mine, but it is funny because there is more than a grain of truth in it.
For example: Your unknown word: “Sozialversicherungsfachangestelltenauszubildender” means „Social security expert employee trainee”
Sozial = social
Versicherung = insurance — Yes, you can break that down too. “sicher” (one of the six German root words) means “safe” and then you add your prefixes and suffixes.
Sozialversicherung = (literally) „social insurance“ but we say “social security”
Fach = field (also “subject” but let’s not go there now)
Gestell = frame, framework
Angestellten = employee, because the prefix “an” means “on” and “ten” is a lot more than one, so obviously “on a framework of a bunch” means a worker bee. Or something like that.
Fach+angestellten = employee for one subject, i.e. expert employee (or “Subject Matter Expert” (SME) in more modern parlance).
The last part is logical but complex and I think I could make it funny but I’ll just stick to the basics.
Bild = picture usually, but also impression or idea
Ausbilden = learn, train, develop
Zu = to or with
Auszubilden = to be trained — how to order prefixes and suffixes is left as an exercise for the student.
Auzubildender = the one to be trained, i.e. trainee
Put it all together and you have your giant-ass word! Oh, you add the “s” after “sozialversicherung” to either add a possessive but I think actually just so that you can speak the word without sounding like a tabby cat with a hairball. This isn’t Czech! Not just by the way, my polyglot wife is Czech and she says that German is a lot easier than Czech. Seven tenses, no articles and serious dearth of vowels. You think declension is tough in German?
My mom liked to joke about Germans (my father’s side is completely German and my paternal grandmother spoke fluent German until the day she died — but that is a whole lot of other stories). The following favorite of hers would equally apply to Austrians and at least the Germanic Swiss. The German is the person you see standing in the pouring rain without an umbrella at three o’clock in the morning at a red crosswalk light. Yes, they follow the rules.
Austrians are a bit “softer” and more fatalistic than the Germans. I’ll end with an old Austrian joke about the difference in attitudes between Germans and Austrians when confronted with a seemingly impossible situation.
Germans: “The situation is serious, but not hopeless!”
Austrians: “The situation is hopeless, but not serious.”
Servus aus Wien und viel Glück!
