What is the longest word in the German language (and what does it mean)?

Question

Please tell me the word itself, a pronouncenation guide for it, and what it means. That would be really helpful!

I might know it, I read that the word for "speed limit" is:

Geschwindekitzbegrenzung

Is that even close?

Answer 1

Technically, since numbers are all one word in German, an infinitely long number would be an infinitely long word.

Answer 2

Geschwindekitzbegrenzung (pronounced gaysh vind (vind rhymes with wind as in blowing air) uh kits bayg ran sung) is not the longest word in the German language...

According to wikipedia:
"The longest German word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. There is even a child's game played in kindergartens and primary schools where a child begins the spelling of a word (which is not told) by naming the first letter. The next one tells the next letter, the third one tells the third and so on. The game is over when a child cannot think of another letter to be added to the word (see Ghost). Another popular child's game consists of building a noun compound. The first child starts with a noun or more commonly already a compound (Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitän (Danube Steamboat captain) is somewhat popular and infamous). The next child has to append another noun so that the compound still has a sensible meaning (Example: Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitän -> Donaudampfschiffahrtskapitänsmütze (Danube Steamboat captain's hat) -> Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmützenfabrik (Danube Steamboat captain's hat factory, and so on). The game ends when the next child cannot think of a word to append that would yield a meaningful compound."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language (you might want to go check out that page since yahoo cuts words off when they're too long... which I think is the most annoying thing ever, but yeah. That's not what you asked =) )

Hope this helps...

Answer 3

I had an ex-girlfriend who used to tell me it was the word for a fishing boat captain. I don't what the word was, though. I hope this helps anyway!

Answer 4

I heard the one about meat was the longest - lol. German words - ugh!

Answer 5

@ txgm: The word is "Donau - dampf -schifffahrts - gesellschafts - kapitän" (i had to split it) And since the german orthography has been changed in 2002 u can even write 3 same letters one after another .. in SchiFFFahrt for eg. so it has one more letter now :)

Answer 6

Rindfleischetikettierungsüber
wachungsaufgabenüber
tragungsgesetz

Something to do with beef, then I gave up.

i had to split it in to three to get it to post