Today, with the internet and social media, nearly everyone across the planet can utter an English word or two sometimes those words even become part of the other language, and people barely notice.

When I was a kid growing up in the US Midwest, I envied other children who spoke more than just English.

My kids are fortunate to grow up bilingually. Muttersprache (literally: 'mother language,' but we would say in English 'mother tongue' or 'native language') is one of those amazing, absolutely convincing hybrid words that are possible in German: melding different words into one, giving them a new meaning that is both lovely and apt. It was in these moments when my kids were little that it was hard to tell just which 'Muttersprache' they would adopt. Perhaps because many German native speakers have a hard time pronouncing the 'th' sound, it also seemed to be a pretty clever, efficient way of getting around that 'th' messiness. 'Dank(e),' of course, is German for 'thanks' and seemed to so organically spill out of their mouths. Figuring out what a word like that means is going to take some skill and maybe even a little luck.One of the sweetest things both of my twins said to me when they were learning to speak was 'Dank you.' Raising them with a German father and me as a US-American mother (in Germany), it appeared to be the penultimate expression of bilingual politeness. That could be a whole sentence in some languages. How long can German words get? Some have reached over 40 letters long. If you're not a native speaker, then it's definitely going to be a challenge.

If you fancy yourself a bit of a linguist, or just someone who likes the challenge of stumbling over a 10-syllable word, maybe you have what it takes to nail this quiz. In fact, some German words were clearly designed with the opposite idea in mind. You'd think those changes would be helpful in making the language more clear and concise, but that's not always the case. From Old High German to Middle High German to Middle Low German and Standard German, it's changed a lot over time. Like any language, German has grown and evolved over many generations.

Long german words in english