49 votes

German words with three of the same letters in a row?

Take an open source dictionary or a closed one, if you have access and it is in textform and a scripting language of your choice, like bash, and search yourself: for c in {a..z}; do grep $c$c$c ~/lib/...
user unknown's user avatar
  • 23.2k
38 votes
Accepted

German words with three of the same letters in a row?

While there are no atomic words with three identical letters in a row, this pattern can sometimes be found in compounds. Compounds (the German word is Kompositum) are a combination of two or more ...
pp_'s user avatar
  • 586
28 votes
Accepted

In native German words, is Q always followed by U, as in English?

In Latin, <qu> is a digraph used to represent the labiovelar stop [kʷ]. The spelling entered English via Latin and French. Native words with [kw] used to be spelled <cw>, e.g. cwēn "queen",...
David Vogt's user avatar
  • 25.5k
26 votes
Accepted

How to translate old German (before 1920)

I'm not sure I understand the question. Every single one of your tokens merely deviates orthographically from current norms -- in other words, everything could be expressed exactly the same way today, ...
johnl's user avatar
  • 7,698
25 votes
Accepted

Warum schreibt man „nämlich“ nicht mit stummem „h“?

Eines der wichtigsten Prinzipien der deutschen Orthographie ist es, die einander entsprechenden Teile von verwandten Wörtern möglichst gleich zu schreiben (Stammprinzip). Nämlich wird also so ...
chirlu's user avatar
  • 19.7k
24 votes
Accepted

Konfirmandenblase vs. Konfirmantenblase

Die Schreibweise mit d ist richtig. Die falsche Variante mit t kommt vermutlich daher, dass Personen, die das Wort Konfirmand nicht kennen, aufgrund des Klanges eine Ähnlichkeit zu ...
Matthias's user avatar
  • 19k
20 votes
Accepted

Gothic script in which letters seem to be all mixed up

There is no substitution of letters in the text you posted. You are looking at writing in a blackletter typeface (German: gebrochene Schrift, lit. broken font) possibly Fraktur. What you believe to ...
Ingmar's user avatar
  • 19.2k
20 votes

In native German words, is Q always followed by U, as in English?

My Database of German words contains 2174 words with Q or q followed by u, but only 2 where after Q or q comes some other letter. There is no word that ends with q. The two exceptional words are: ...
Hubert Schölnast's user avatar
17 votes

Have spelling reformers ever proposed rewriting "-ti-" as "-zi-" when it is pronounced that way?

Yes. That is actually a significant part of one of the recent spelling reforms: Es werden neue Varianten eingeführt: Differenzial, Potenzial, potenziell, substanziell, parallel zu den schon ...
LаngLаngС's user avatar
  • 7,320
16 votes

German words with three of the same letters in a row?

Rules If I didn’t miss something, the official regulations specify triple letters only implicitly, because they contain no rule for collapsing them into two, except for the three “exceptions” Drittel,...
Crissov's user avatar
  • 9,111
16 votes
Accepted

Is the spelling 'chocolade' significant?

Here is a ngram for Schokolade/Chocolade and Chocolat: You can see Chocolade (and Chokolade) is an old writing, it was the common writing before 1900. As a trade name you can give the impression of a ...
knut's user avatar
  • 9,274
16 votes
Accepted

What transcription system from Japanese used ÿ?

This is "ij", not "ÿ" ("y" with diaeresis). It's just a peculiarity of the font used for this map that many letters connect to the following one (compare "i", "m", and "t" in "Iriomote"), so that "i" ...
Uwe's user avatar
  • 10.4k
16 votes
Accepted

Wie kann ich das "h" in Themperatur etablieren?

Deine Meinung ist einfach falsch: "Thermo-" ist zurückzuführen auf das griechische "thermós (θερμός)", "Temperatur" dagegen auf das lateinische "temperātūra". ...
Roland's user avatar
  • 1,726
14 votes
Accepted

Warum wird »Richtung« auch großgeschrieben, wenn es als Präposition genutzt wird?

Es ist eine Präposition Erst einmal: Es ist keine Apposition, sondern tatsächliche eine Präposition. Grund? Erweiterungsprobe. Wenn Richtung Hannover eine Apposition wäre wie Farbe Lila oder Kaiser ...
mach's user avatar
  • 7,041
13 votes
Accepted

Why are some words spelled with “tz” if “z” already has the “ts” sound?

Tz indicates that the preceding vowel is short; z doesn’t (though this may still be the case for other reasons). Most other consonants are doubled in such a situation; z is different for historical ...
Wrzlprmft's user avatar
  • 21.8k
13 votes

When using the spelling alphabet, is it OK (or even preferable) to spell letters separately in cases where a combination of letters has its own word?

It's a dying skill, and it depends on who you're talking to on the phone. The average call center agent in customer service does not get a training that is the most professional in that aspect ...
HalvarF's user avatar
  • 25.7k
12 votes

Words where changing “ß” to “ss” changes the meaning, e.g., “Maßen” to “Massen”

I am not aware of any such list, but I don't think it would be very long. Here are the few words that I can contribute: Busse (plural to Bus) vs. Buße (penitence; in Switzerland also a fine, but ...
Matthias's user avatar
  • 19k
12 votes
Accepted

Why do Germans spell and pronounce "rocket" with an "a" (Rakete)?

DWDS says Der dt. Ausdruck erscheint bald mit Vokalwechsel zu a (vielleicht nach der obital. Nebenform oder in Anlehnung an lautähnliches frühnhd. Ragget(t)en ‘Schlagnetz, Schläger beim Ballspiel’, ...
mtwde's user avatar
  • 14.2k
12 votes
Accepted

What's happening here? Dialect

Honestly I am pretty sure this is some kind of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) test website and the words are just some kind of hardly understandable gibberish. Take a look at the author, google him ...
mtwde's user avatar
  • 14.2k
11 votes

German words with three of the same letters in a row?

The German dictionary linked to by this answer can be searched with a simple regex (for example using Notepad++). The dictionary file returned 3637 hits for the regex search (.)\1{2,}. Unfortunately, ...
March Ho's user avatar
  • 347
11 votes
Accepted

Verb conjugation, isst oder ißt?

The question about »ss« or »ß« is about the »Rechtschreibreform« Many words, that used to be written with »ß« are written with »ss« since 1996. Now (since 1996) it depends on the length of the spoken ...
Hubert Schölnast's user avatar
11 votes
Accepted

Neue Schreibweise von Komposita

Meine Vermutung: Viele Textverarbeitungsprogramme haben Probleme, zusammengesetzte Wörter in der Rechtschreibprüfung zu analysieren und markieren sie. Schreibt der unsichere Benutzer dann zwei ...
Stephie's user avatar
  • 24k
11 votes

Neue Schreibweise von Komposita

Es müsste Studententypen oder Studenten-Typen heißen. Oder eben umschrieben werden als Typen von Studenten. Auch Studenten, die jeder kennt wäre richtig. Deppenleerzeichen sind nicht korrekt. Es ...
Chieron's user avatar
  • 3,562
11 votes

Spelling of Strudel in German: Strudel or Strüdel?

Some English speaking people who don't speak German don't understand the meaning of the dots on a, o and u, but they can see, that those dots are typical for German language. German language also ...
Hubert Schölnast's user avatar
11 votes
Accepted

How did the y get lost in German writing?

The reason y was lost is standardisation. For instance, Ebert/Reichmann/Solms/Wegera, Frühneuhochdeutsche Grammatik, list the following variants under the heading ei / ai (§ L 27): <ei, ey, eÿ, ...
David Vogt's user avatar
  • 25.5k
10 votes
Accepted

Hyphen in "Samstagen, Sonn- und Feiertagen"

It actually feels equally weird to think of Mon- bis Freitag I can’t remember ever seeing that construction, it is usually Montag bis Freitag Although that has more characters. This leads me ...
Jan's user avatar
  • 38.6k
10 votes
Accepted

Wo steht, dass man im Deutschen Wörter im Normalfall kleinschreibt?

Welche der vielen Regeln, die der Rechtschreibrat herausgegeben hat, könnte diese Behauptung widerlegen? Zwei Ansätze: Die Vorbemerkung des Abschnitts zur Groß- und Kleinschreibung (Kapitel D, ...
Wrzlprmft's user avatar
  • 21.8k
10 votes

Warum wird »Richtung« auch großgeschrieben, wenn es als Präposition genutzt wird?

Ich würde bei "Richtung Osten" ganz einfach annehmen, dass hier ein Substantiv zur näheren Bestimmung eines anderen Substantivs dient - so wie in die Farbe Lila der Planet Erde der Kaiser ...
tofro's user avatar
  • 62.7k
10 votes
Accepted

When to use a 'k' and when to use a 'c'?

You were correct with your assumption, German almost never uses 'c' for a 'k' sound. But German has adopted many words from other languages and often keeps their writing: Café Captain Ciao City Code ....
Sentry's user avatar
  • 1,118
10 votes

Was ist der Zweck des großen Eszetts?

Wenn du in Großbuchstaben schreiben musst. Heißt jemand Meißner oder Meissner wenn da MEISSNER steht? Für Namen wurde es auch vor allem eingeführt. Da nach alten Regeln hier immer ein großes SS ...
Patrick Hessinger's user avatar

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible