As a teen, I was tickled to discover the German language’s approach to compound nouns: combination. You want a word for ‘tomato sauce’? Tomatensauce. Excellent!

I was reminded of this at the weekend by a list of ‘the best German compound nouns, as suggested by Guardian.co.uk readers’:

Tausendsassa is literally “a thousand this and that”. The closest English equivalant would be jack of all trades.
Reißverschlusssystem is the system of merging traffic as two lanes become one. Literally “zipper system”.
Rechtschreibungsüberprüfungsprogramm means spell checker, which comes in very handy when exploring compound nouns.
Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung means “overcoming the past”.
Universitätsbibliotheksgarderobenschranknummerkartenanzeigelesegerät is the university library locker number card reader display.
Suchmaschinenoptimierungsbeauftragte(r) is a web worker assigned to do search engine optimisation.

Slip them into conversation. Casual like. Euro-sophistication can be yours.