Translations of "child psychologist" into German (nouns with preceding multifunction adjectives)

Question

I am an extreme novice novice at German. As I am aware of the fact that there are some common grammatical constructions to German and English, and in view of the fact that I am also aware that in German, especially formal German, and dictionary German, one can construct fairly lengthy nouns (in terms of strung adjective and noun combinations), I am particularly curious about how would properly translate, the following English word, with these two different meanings, into German:

1. Child psychologist: a child who is also a psychologist
2. Child psychologist: a psychologist who studies children

I would prefer it if I could have some single word constructions for the translation of this word combination (which, in my mind, at least, would differ in these two cases), into German.

Thank you. :-)

Answer 1

Note that German builds compound substantives instead of arranging the substantives in a series like English does. Rule of thumb is: The last substantive in the compound is the "fact" substantive (what we "mean the thing to be"), anything before it is used attributively, so

ein Kinderpsychologe

is a psychologist that treats children and

ein Psychologenkind

is a child that is the child of a psychologist, or acts as a psychologist.

Another famous example of German compound substantives is the

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänswitwe

Where

Donaudampfschifffahrt

Is "Danube steamboat"

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft

is "Danube steamboat company"

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

"Captain with the Danube steamboat company"

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänswitwe

"Widow of the deceased captain with the Danube steamboat company"

Answer 2

As @tofros answer and its comments Show, it's easy to find a word for example 2, but very difficult for example 1, especially, because some word constructions have fixed meanings. "Psychologenkind" sounds like the child of a psychologist, similar to the better known "Lehrerkind", which is a child of a teacher.

Furthermore, a child who is a psychologist is very very uncommon, so you need an expression that shows exactly what you mean or conforms to similar well known word constructions.

In this case I would prefer

Kindpsychologe or Kind-Psychologe

like in Kindkaiser (child emperor).

But you don't have to use "Kind". When thinking about children doing adult Jobs, I always think about "The Three Investigators" books. They call themselves "Junior-Detektive".

From there on one could translate it as

Junior-Psychologe,

even though you should be aware that some people will think it is a psychologist at the beginning of his/her carreer, just like a "Juniorprofessor".

But maybe you can think of other more suitable prefixes.

Answer 3

In addition to mtwde's answer:

Indeed, a child psychologist in the sense of a child who is a psychologist is not a thing you meet so often in reality, or expressed the other way round: even if you come to the conclusion that every child is also a psychologist of some kind [yes, pun more or less intended], this is not a standard topic of communication, and therefore there is no special term for a pycholochild.

People coin terms for things they address frequently. For things that are no topic of communication, there are no words, usually. (Interesting question: Is there a word in any human language relating to a thing about which nobody speaks?)

However, if you take a little bit a broader perspective, you may find suitable terms. Mtwde mentioned Junior-Psychologe, which is an option, but it is not perfect because the first thing that would come to your mind when hearing this is something like an assistant psychologist, a psychologist in training or so, so usually a person in their late twenties or early thirties.

However, for children plus professions there is a tradition of calling this

Der kleine Zauberer

Der kleine Chemiker

Der kleine Zimmermann

Der kleine Radiologe ¹

or respectively

Der kleine Psychologe.

You would usually find such terms on books and on experimental kits for children for topics like chemistry, engineering, physics, biology, illusionism etc. The term can be used both for the book or experimental kit (cardboard box with variuos materials) and for the child playing or experimenting.

As far as I know there is no experimental kit "Der kleine Psychologe" but if you think this is a market niche: go ahead and offer one! What would you include? I suggest: a desktop calender; a couch; a coffee table an three armchairs; a note pad and a pen; Rohrschach test cards, a potted plant, and a set of tiny dolls for familiy constellations.

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¹ This is only partly a joke. There was an experimental kit available in the 1950 in the US for exploring radioactivity (Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory). The kit contained materials such as uranium ore plus various instruments such as a Geiger counter and a cloud chamber. For some reason, this product line has been discontinued... It was also rather expensive; if the information I found is correct, it was something equivalent to today's 500 dollars. Nuclear lab kits only for the better-off child, it seems!