“Eine Flasche Wasser” versus “Eine Wasserflasche”

Question

My German teacher (a native German) taught us that eine Flasche Wasser means that the bottle is either full or still had some liquid in it.

However, eine Wasserflasche means it’s an empty bottle of water.

This goes for any [Bier/Wasser/Wein]flasche combo.

I asked a few friends about this, and also posted it in Slack at work (all native Germans) and everyone claimed she was wrong.

Is this an example of typical language teacher jargon, that the general public doesn’t care about?

Or is there an actual difference in meaning here?

If it is a difference in meaning, can you please give a simple example that clarifies it?

Also if we could avoid Duden I’d appreciate it.

Answer 1

It's really pretty much the same in English, a bottle of water vs. a water bottle. While a Flasche Wasser certainly has some water in it, a Wasserflasche can be both full or empty.

It's even more obvious with, say, wine or beer:

Ich habe eine Flasche Wein zum Essen mitgebracht. Die leeren Weinflaschen geben wir nachher zum Altglas. Bring mir bitte eine Flasche Bier aus der Küche mit! Für leere Bierflaschen bekommt man Pfand.

Answer 2

I (native German speaker) disagree with the assessment that your teacher is "full of waste products", but I do think she is being unnecessarily unsystematic.

eine Flasche Wasser is a quantity of a substance.

eine Wasserflasche is a container normally used for a particular substance.

Both can be used to indicate the container filled with the quantity (i.e. the sum of both meanings), and this normally becomes clear from context.

This rule applies quite generally, as in the narrow sense

• "number container substance" is the quantity
• "number substance-container" is the container

Answer 3

The first, eine Flasche Wasser, is a partitive apposition, that was recently covered in this question. Its meaning is a bottle filled with water.

The second, eine Wasserflasche, is a simple compound noun. To analyse compound nouns, look for the last noun – German is a head-last language with respect to compound nouns so the last noun will tell you what the entire compound is taking about. The last noun is Flasche, so we are dealing with a bottle. Wasser is merely a specifier about the type of bottle; in this case a bottle for water.

While eine Flasche Wasser clearly implies that the bottle is full (or at least more filled than unfilled) with water (and no other liquid), eine Wasserflasche gives us no information about the contents of the bottle — it only tells us it was made or designed to contain water. Compare the following examples.

Hast du eine Flasche Wasser für mich?

Ja, meine Wasserflasche ist voll. Wenn die Wasserflasche leer ist, habe ich noch eine Colaflasche voll Wasser.

 Ich hab dir eine halbvolle Wasserflasche übergelassen.

Answer 4

I’m a native speaker as well. I want to add the difference between every day language and more formal language. All points below are my experiences in Germany (in the north, middle and south).

Eine Flasche Wasser:

• is normally full or filled with water (or beer or what ever)
• is used when you order a bottle in an restaurant
• if this bottle is empty, you normally add this info “eine leere Flasche Wasser” to make sure that this bottle was filled with water but now it isn’t

Eine Wasserflasche:

• “gib mir mal ’ne Wasserflasche” is the not so formal request for a bottle filled with water
• is a synonym for bottles filled with soft drinks (water, cola etc.). For example: glad bottle “Deutscher Brunnen Leihflasche”
• can be both, full, half or empty.