For many learners of the German language one of the first “what have I gotten myself into” comes when one first reads the word for nurse - Krankenschwester. And anyone who can say the ten longest words in the Duden dictionary without stumbling over a letter still earns our respect, whether they are a native speaker or not. The longest word - Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung - is an incredible 36 letters long. But it might surprise you to learn that English actually has the better of German when it comes to measuring longest words against each other. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease contracted by inhaling small particles from a volcano, is a quite unnecessary 45 letters long.

Source: The Local August 24, 2017 14:48 UTC