German orthography
Compound words, including nouns, are written together, e.g. "Haustür" (Haus+Tür; house door), "Tischlampe" (Tisch+Lampe; table lamp), "Kaltwasserhahn" (Kalt+Wasser+Hahn; cold water tap/faucet). This can lead to long words: the longest word in regular use, "Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften" ("legal protection insurance companies"), consists of 39 letters; while the longest German word ever published ("Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft", "Association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services") has 79 letters.
German language
Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:
Both of these rules have exceptions (e.g. "has" is short despite the first rule; , "moon" is long despite the second rule). For an "i" that is neither in the combination "ie" (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule. In some cases, there are regional differences: In central Germany (Hessen), the "o" in the proper name "Hoffmann" is pronounced long, whereas most other Germans would pronounce it short; the same applies to the "e" in the geographical name "Mecklenburg" for people in that region. The word "cities", is pronounced with a short vowel by some (Jan Hofer, ARD Television) and with a long vowel by others (Marietta Slomka, ZDF Television). Finally, a vowel followed by "ch" can be short ( "compartment", "kitchen") or long ( "search", "books") almost at random. Thus, is homographous between "puddle" and "manner of laughing" (colloquial) or "laugh!" (imperative).