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The first sentence in my answer to a question about orbital mechanics is

Nice question; it's gedankenexperiment time!

The word gedankenexperiment or its variants is (or at least was) in regular use by scientists after Albert Einstein's work on special relativity, where he performed a "thought experiment" involving light and motion at speeds close to the speed of light.

Google translate returns Es ist party zeit! from the English It's party time!

Is it possible then to construct the following single word as in Es ist gedankenexperimentzeit!, Or would it have to be two words, as in Es ist gedankenexperiment zeit!

Perhaps there is a better and different way to to say it?

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    a small pov about differences in connecting / composing words in german was covered with this question: german.stackexchange.com/questions/50005/… May 14, 2019 at 7:22
  • @ShegitBrahm very nice link, thank you!
    – uhoh
    May 14, 2019 at 7:43
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    you can technically say so but it not necessairily makes much sense or your sentence easy to understand. i would refactor this to "Es ist Zeit für ein Gedankenexperiment" or "An dieser Stelle möchte ich ein Gedankenexperiment anbringen". Composite words are perfectly possible in german but not always the best way to skin a cat. Think of the rather meme-ish telling " Dampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsgattin" a perfectly correct word but by far a bad style as its hard to read and grasp. Its not even very common to do so among native speakers.
    – der bender
    May 15, 2019 at 14:41

1 Answer 1

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Google translate returns Es ist party zeit!

Probably this is because you entered two separate words. I tried "Partyzeit" which is the real word, the translator doesn't know it from German to English. Even in times when everyone thinks AI and Smarthomes and other stuff should replace human thinking, it isn't the case - so don't blindly trust automatic translators.

Is it possible then to construct the following single word

It actually is possible to construct such a word. Start it with a capital letter.
Generally composite words are common in german. Some advertising or also verbal speech tries to be more interesting by using unusual composite words. This one indeed is unusual and such words are a little more complex to understand than paraphrasing them but people should know what you mean.

If you should use it or not depends on if you want to attract attention or not. If not I'd try to avoid that and say/write something else.

Or would it have to be two words, as in Es ist gedankenexperiment zeit!

(Think of Capitals too...) No this is unusual.
A little better is to write that as Gedankenexperiment-Zeit (with a -) but to me (-> personal opinion) this now appears still a little unusual but no longer unusual enough to be really extraordinary.

Perhaps there is a better and different way to to say it?

A more convenient way is to say

Es ist Zeit für Gedankenexperimente

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    A guideline whether you should make a new compound is how many abstract concepts are involved. In Gedankenexperimentierzeit all parts are such abstract concepts, which makes the compound hard to grasp.
    – Janka
    May 14, 2019 at 4:36
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    I would go with the singular form: "Es ist Zeit für ein Gedankenexperiment." May 14, 2019 at 7:54

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