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In my current translation project I have several sentences which end with a clause without a verb. I would like to do this in the corresponding German as a way to be concise and avoid putting too many descriptive words and phrases in front of a noun. For example:

This is a small piece of paper, fit for a carrier bird.

I could translate this word for word into German as:

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, für einen Trägervogel geeignet.

If I simply put everything in front of the noun it would look like this (I believe this is considered awkward):

Das ist ein kleines, für einen Trägervogel geeignetes Stück Papier.

But when I plug this sentence into Google Translate it adds a relative pronoun and verb to the clause like so:

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, das für einen Trägervogel geeignet ist.

It seems to me that the first translation above is more concise, but is this wrong grammatically, or considered bad style by native German speakers?

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We call it die Brieftaube. I don't know whether there were ever other carrier birds but those are exceptions anyway and pretty much they all have pet names. So I advocate against inventing a noun as der Trägervogel. If at all, call it der Briefvogel or better die Briefgans or similar.

And it's better to use plural as this is a kind of birds rather than a single bird.


About your question, there are some acceptable alternatives.

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, für Brieftauben geeignet.

This is okay. It's a participle complement to ein kleines Stück Papier, not a dependent clause. Same as in English. The only downside is rhythm. Better in that regard:

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, für Brieftauben wie gemacht.

There is an alternative order that you should consider. It sounds much better:

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, geeignet für Brieftauben.

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, wie gemacht für Brieftauben.

That latter sentence is how I would phrase it. It has für Brieftauben in its Nachfeld, which emphasises it a lot.

Das ist ein kleines, für Brieftauben geeignetes Stück Papier.

That's also good but it carries less enthusiasm as it misses the paraphrase.

Das ist ein kleines, für Brieftauben wie gemachtes Stück Papier.

A bit more enthusiasm because of the comparison.

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, das für Brieftauben geeignet ist.

That's super boring. You should not use this.

Das ist ein kleines Stück Papier, das für Brieftauben wie gemacht ist.

Less boring. Still boring.

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