One word or two?

Jany

Just helped a 13-year-old German kid with his English homework. He`d written the word "homecountry" as one word. I said it`s "home country".
He said his teacher had said it could be written as one word. I`ve heard of "homeland", but "homecountry"???

dorothyd

nope. not home country.

Phots Moll

I think in German they do join lots of words together in this way, so I can understand him being confused.

Jany

Yes, they have huge words, like "Geheimhaltungsvorschriftparagraph" oder "Luftaufsichtsbarracke" (can you imagine someone including that word in a song? They did. Reinhard Mey)

Not sure what your "nope" refers to, Dorothy. Not "home country" or not "homecountry"? :-)

dorothyd

not homecountry

Verica

Because in German so many words are joined into one long word and because homeland is one word, it must be difficult for him to understand that home country must be two.

Jany

I can understand the kid having difficultiy with it, but the teacher ought to know better.

Lolli

Jany, not sure whether you are in Germany or England helping this kid with his homework. If in Germany I can understand the teacher's confusion; if in England s/he should know better. Anyway, correctly, home country is written as two separate words and not hyphenated, either!

Jany

I`m in Germany, Lolli, helping a German kid taught by a German teacher. Iused to do this for years and it isn`t the first time I`ve had to tell a child that his teacher is talking nonsense. I don`t knew where they do their training...

Chrisinom

Jany, I'm a German teacher teaching English ... Well, it's not so easy. Just consider how many varieties of English there are worldwide: It's so easy to get confused. And then, it's just a spelling mistake, not worse than spelling Luftaufsichtsbaracke with double r ... makes me think of Obama ueber den Wolken ...

Patrick

:)

Jay Mandal

And lots of English words have alternative spellings - or, over the years, two words have become joined with a hyphen, and then the hyphen has been dropped. Anyone remember writing 'to-day'?

Carol

Same with co- type words, I still can't get used to seeing cooperation.

Jay Mandal

I have trouble with infrared. Looks like the past tense of some odd verb.

Carol

:)

Chrisinom

Back to the home country problem: Googling "homecountry" I got 3760 entries from .uk sites alone - including this one, which was the first. In fact I was correcting ("infrareading") 8th-formers' (are they hyphenated?) tests and had my doubts when I read "homecountry" - should I mark it as wrong? (no infrared anylysis required, but some cooperation would help.)

Jay Mandal

I'd say two words, no hyphen.

Jay Mandal

I don't think eighth formers would be hyphenated if it was by itself. Not quite sure what happens, if anything, if you add 'tests'. The apostrophe, only?

Jay Mandal

Chambers 2001 doesn't mention 'home country' as either one word or two (under 'home'). It certainly doesn't seem to be a compound word.

Chrisinom

Thanks Jay Mandal. Many dictionaries do not mention "home country", like the dictionary my students are allowed to use (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary). Strangely enough, this dictionary mentions both motherland and mother country.

Jay Mandal

We don't really say 'home country'.

Jenny

I wouldn't like to have to learn English as a foreign language! Its spelling, pronunciation and meaning can be very confusing because of the input from so many other languages in the past - but what a fantastic language it is.

Welcome to Talkback, Chrisinom! :)

Stan2

Viv la English!