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Nominalisation II

Making nouns out of non-nouns

Keep in mind that ideally you avoid nominalising words as that will only lead to a very formal and often difficult to understand language. You are nevertheless forced to deal with this phenomenon whenever you receive a letter from state or other legal institutions. Therefore it is good to be familiar with the rules of nominalisation.

1. Add a noun-ending

A very common way to create a noun is to add an ending. Here are a few examples for the feminine endings:

-HEIT
gesund (healthy) = Gesund.heit (the health)
krank (ill) = Krank.heit (the ill.ness)

-UNG
heiz.en (to heat) = Heiz.ung (the heat.ing)
kühlen (to cool) = Kühl.ung (the cool.ing)

-KEIT
süß (sweet) = Süß.ig.keit (the sweet)
gerecht (just) = Gerecht.ig.keit (justice)

-SCHAFT
bereit (ready) = Bereit.schaft (the readiness)
herrschen (to reign) = Herr.schaft (the reign)

-ITÄT
real (real) = Real.ität (the reality)
absurd (absurd) = Absurd.ität (the absurdity)

2. How to turn (almost) every verb into a noun

The easiest but unfortunately not always applicable way to create a noun from almost any verb is to simply capitalize it. All such nouns are rather describing a process and they will all be of neuter gender. Like in English there are alternative nouns with the same origin. Those will often rather describe a result.

A few examples. Try to understand the difference between the given alternatives:

schlafen (to sleep)
das Schlafen (the sleep.ing = process)
der Schlaf (the sleep = result of having fallen asleep)

dauern (to last)
das Dauern (the last.ing = rarely or possibly never used)
die Dauer (the duration)

rauchen (to smoke)
das Rauchen (the smok.ing of cigarets)
der Rauch (the smoke from a fire)

laden (to load)
das Laden (the load.ing)
die Ladung (the load/charge/cargo)

Feel free to share other examples in the comments below.


BONUS

Sometimes the alternative noun is not that easily recognized but if you know your past forms very well you might still get their meaning. Can you guess what verb the following nouns stem from?

  1. der Gang
  2. die Annahme
  3. die Gabe
  4. der Brand
  5. der Hang
  6. der Ge.stank
  7. das Band
  8. das Ge.spräch
  9. die Tränke
  10. der Fraß

ANSWERS

  1. der Gang = the aisle / corridor stems from "gehen" (Perfekt: ge.gang.en)
  2. die Annahme = the assumption stems from "an.nehmen" (Präteritum: nahm)
  3. die Gabe = the gift / offering stems from "geben" (Präteritum: gab)
  4. der Brand = the (destructive) fire stems from "brennen" (Präteritum: brannt.e)
  5. der Hang = the slope / tendency stems from "hängen" (Perfekt: ge.hang.en)
  6. der Ge.stank = the stench / stink stems from "stinken" (Präteritum: stank)
  7. das Band = the ribbon stems from "binden" (Präteritum: band)
  8. das Ge.spräch = the conversation stems from "sprechen" (Präteritum: sprach)
  9. die Tränke = watering place for e.g. horses stems from "trinken" (Präteritum: trank)
  10. der Fraß = muck (food for animals) stems from "fr.essen" (Präteritum: fraß)

This topic is covered in: B2-L23