I wonder why Germans like compound words so much.
I tried to find an answer in Wikipedia, but it only explains what it is, not why (or if) we like it. It is basically a trait of German and other languages.
I am no linguist and thus it is tricky to explain my mother tongue. I think the sentence is better structured by writing a term without spaces. However, since our spelling reform from about 20 years ago, we can / shall use dashes to structure very long words. Also in some cases a word would change its meaning, if its parts were separated by a space.
Sometimes you misread a German compound word or automatic word wrap messes it up - e.g.: Blumentopferde (potting compost)
- [li]correct: [/li]Blumen-
topferde
[li]wrong: [/li]Blumento-
pferde (blumento horses; blumento is no word :p)
Also Blumentopf (flower pot) is a compound word, too, but that has no influence on how to hyphenate it.
Ha! my german teacher in these paid classes i attend gave this example:D
Compound words are one of the cool things about german. If you get a feel for it you can even intuitively use new words by adding some together.
The only thing i’ve never liked about german is gender declination:rolleyes: Hopefully it will become second nature
Yes, you can create words like Abwasserbehandlungsanlage (sewage treatment facility) as needed.
But Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (Wikipedia) is bad style, unintelligible and totally unacceptable. vBulletin even inserts a space after 50 chars, so that it does not break the forum format.
This is the longest word I was taught “Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft”- like you said that space (Wiki) shouldn’t be there 
It’s apparently an artificial word, and that society probably never existed. Well, if you are learning German, I have a compound word challenge for you. 
It fascinates me, this approach to naming new things and concepts. Some languages just make up new words whole-cloth (sometimes by portmanteau-ing and shortening the result), some mug other languages for their words in dark alleys, and some go “Well, we’ve got all these other pre-existing words that when assembled sort of mean what we’re going for, so let’s put them together and see what happens”.
I think, you refer to the word “Ingame-Käufe”?
The reason, why I choose this, is simple:
There is no such word in german as “Ingame”. This is an english term and the whole word is something often called “denglish”. Maybe a correct term would be: “Käufe innerhalb des Spiels.”
It´s like when I´m talking about my “RPG-Bücher” (RPG-books). RPG is english and the correct word would be “Rollenspielbücher” (roleplay books). But roleplay has more than one meaning, so…
I´m a teacher who (as one subject) teaches how to write business letters. My pupils sometimes need “Denglish”-terms because they are used in companies and I tell them that this wirting with a “-” is one possible way.
I was reminded of this thread when I read the word schmerzverzerrt (contorted[verzerrt] with pain[Schmerz]). I just realized its great spelling.
Learn Dutch, it has most of the quirks of German, without the hassle of genders and whatnot. No need to learn those der, den, das, and so on, I never liked those in school and have forgotten them by now. Can still make myself understandable in German, I don’t understand why it has to be so complicated.
Nobody understands it. 
On the other side while living only about 45 min from the Netherlands, I don´t understand a word when someone is speaking dutch. Always have to speak english when in Netherlands or Belgium.
It’s true that, for my western and urban version, Dutch is becoming more like an unholy hybrid of itself with English and various Caribean languages thrown in, with a dash of Arabic as well. Fun times, if I were a linguist.