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In German the grammatical rules are to take the English singular and then apply German inflection to it. So for example "community, communities" becomes "die C

In German the grammatical rules are to take the English singular and then apply German inflection to it. So for example "community, communities" becomes "die Community, die Communitys". I personally struggle with this rule, because I think the number of German people knowing the English plural "communities" is actually higher than those knowing the inflection rules for foreign words, making you look stupid when using the correct form. Another one is that people do not get how to form compound nouns with English words. If you use it in German, "social media manager" becomes "(der) Social-Media-Manager". The rule is so simple: Write everything together, foreign words get a dash. As these words are very common in programming related fields, almost all of the agency websites get them wrong. The gender of the word is derived from words of similar meaning or just similar sounding words, which sometimes creates conflicts about which gender a word has. For example we are divided on whether a blog is male or neuter (der Blog/das Blog), we are only sure it is not female.

pluma 10y ago
Fun fact: loan words can become "naturalized" as their usage increases. Originally "Computer" was a loan word but now it's considered standard German, so "Computerspiel" is fine now but would have been written as "Computer-Spiel" before. I'm not sure how this distinction is made. As far as I can tell "Business" and "Software" aren't quite there yet ("Softwareentwickler" is something I see relatively frequently but as far as I know it's still considered non-standard).
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  Jep, was about to include that as well, but kept it out to make it clear how easy the rule actually is. I have only a vague understanding on how to do it in English so I mostly use spaces everywhere. > I'm not sure how this distinction is made. The distinction is being made just like every other German word has been created: By more and more people using them like that and authorities like the Duden recognizing that. What I dislike about foreign words from English or French is that they are written differently than they are spoken, making you switch language pronunciation mid-sentence while reading. Historically foreign words at some point were also spelled German, I would like to see that done again. At first it will be weird, but a hundred years ago people also found it weird to write "Büro" instead of the original French "bureau", which in everyday live nobody recognizes as originally French anymore.

pluma 10y ago

Fun fact: loan words can become "naturalized" as their usage increases. Originally "Computer" was a loan word but now it's considered standard German, so "Computerspiel" is fine now but would have been written as "Computer-Spiel" before. I'm not sure how this distinction is made. As far as I can tell "Business" and "Software" aren't quite there yet ("Softwareentwickler" is something I see relatively frequently but as far as I know it's still considered non-standard).

allendoerfer 10y ago
Jep, was about to include that as well, but kept it out to make it clear how easy the rule actually is. I have only a vague understanding on how to do it in English so I mostly use spaces everywhere. > I'm not sure how this distinction is made. The distinction is being made just like every other German word has been created: By more and more people using them like that and authorities like the Duden recognizing that. What I dislike about foreign words from English or French is that they are written differently than they are spoken, making you switch language pronunciation mid-sentence while reading. Historically foreign words at some point were also spelled German, I would like to see that done again. At first it will be weird, but a hundred years ago people also found it weird to write "Büro" instead of the original French "bureau", which in everyday live nobody recognizes as originally French anymore.