It literally means “aerial-defense-cannon-armoured-battle-vehicle cheetah”. Not shorter in English.
German doesn’t have longer words, it’s just that you can stick together existing words to make up new words. For example, “the front door of the house” in German is “Haustür”, literally “housedoor”. It goes on logically, like “the handle of the front door of the house” is Haustürklinke, literally housedoorhandle. This way it is possible to make up arbitrarily long words which becime ever more specific, just without a tonne of “of” in between.
But general usage is rarely more than 2 or 3 short words stuck together. Stuff like Vorratskasten and Notreserve or Fliegengitter. Well, ok, there’s stuff like Insektenbekämpfungsmittel.
I’ll take the Flugabwehrkanonenpanzerkampfwagen Gepard instead.
The Germans always have a mouthful
It literally means “aerial-defense-cannon-armoured-battle-vehicle cheetah”. Not shorter in English.
German doesn’t have longer words, it’s just that you can stick together existing words to make up new words. For example, “the front door of the house” in German is “Haustür”, literally “housedoor”. It goes on logically, like “the handle of the front door of the house” is Haustürklinke, literally housedoorhandle. This way it is possible to make up arbitrarily long words which becime ever more specific, just without a tonne of “of” in between.
But general usage is rarely more than 2 or 3 short words stuck together. Stuff like Vorratskasten and Notreserve or Fliegengitter. Well, ok, there’s stuff like Insektenbekämpfungsmittel.
Rindfleischettiketierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.
US Military would probably call it “ADCABC Cheetah” because indecipherable acronyms are much better.
Sometimes they’re funny though, like the ATTACK-EMS and the ASSRAMMING missiles