Nominal Style vs. Verbal Style
Nominal Style vs. Verbal Style
Formal written German loves turning verbs into nouns — a habit called Nominalstil — while everyday spoken German prefers verbs and subordinate clauses, called Verbalstil; learning to convert between the two is essential for reading and writing at a professional level.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
What Nominalstil does: verb becomes noun, clause becomes phrase
Nachdem er die Arbeit beendet hatte, ging er nach Hause. (Verbalstil) → Nach Beendigung der Arbeit ging er nach Hause. (Nominalstil)
After he had finished the work, he went home. → After finishing/completion of the work, he went home.
Nominalstil replaces a finite verb inside a subordinate clause with a noun (usually built with a suffix like -ung, -heit, -keit, or -tion: beenden → die Beendigung) governed by a preposition (nach, bei, durch, zur) instead of a conjunction (nachdem, weil, wenn). English does this too — 'after finishing the work' is a nominalization of 'after he finished the work' — so the underlying move is familiar. What's different is degree: formal German nominalizes far more aggressively and routinely than formal English, often stacking several nominalizations and genitive chains into a single dense sentence where English would keep at least some of the clauses spelled out.
Converting between styles: conjunction+clause becomes preposition+noun
weil er krank war (Verbalstil) → wegen seiner Krankheit (Nominalstil) · wenn man das Gesetz ändert (Verbalstil) → bei einer Änderung des Gesetzes (Nominalstil)
because he was sick → because of his illness · if the law is changed → in the event of an amendment to the law
Each common subordinating conjunction has a preposition-plus-noun counterpart used in Nominalstil: weil ↔ wegen, wenn ↔ bei, nachdem ↔ nach, obwohl ↔ trotz. Recognizing these pairs lets you 'unpack' a dense nominal sentence back into an ordinary clause with a finite verb when reading, and 'compress' a spoken-sounding sentence into formal register when writing reports, official letters, or academic papers — the same skill an English writer uses when turning 'because sales fell' into 'due to a decline in sales', just applied far more systematically in German.
Register: Nominalstil dominates bureaucratic, academic, and journalistic writing
zur Verbesserung der Sicherheit / bei der Durchführung der Reform / im Rahmen der Umsetzung
for the improvement of safety / in the implementation of the reform / within the framework of the implementation
Nominalstil is the default register of German officialese, legal text, academic prose, and news reporting, while Verbalstil dominates conversation, narrative, and casual writing. English formal writing nominalizes too, but usually caps it at one nominalization per sentence; German formal writing routinely chains two or three nominalized phrases together (often stacked as genitives — see the genitive-chains lesson), producing sentences that feel noticeably more 'noun-heavy' than their closest English equivalent. Recognizing this as a deliberate register choice, not a translation of English habits, helps you read dense German prose without getting lost.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| German | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| beenden → die Beendigung | beh-END-en → dee beh-END-ig-oong | to finish → the completion |
| durchführen → die Durchführung | DOORKH-fuer-en → dee DOORKH-fuer-oong | to carry out → the implementation |
| verbessern → die Verbesserung | fer-BES-ern → dee fer-BES-er-oong | to improve → the improvement |
| entscheiden → die Entscheidung | ent-SHY-den → dee ent-SHY-doong | to decide → the decision |
| ändern → die Änderung | END-ern → dee END-er-oong | to change → the change/amendment |
| prüfen → die Prüfung | PRUEF-en → dee PRUEF-oong | to examine → the examination |
| teilnehmen → die Teilnahme | TYL-nay-men → dee TYL-nah-meh | to participate → the participation |
| berücksichtigen → die Berücksichtigung | beh-RUEK-zikh-tig-en → dee beh-RUEK-zikh-tig-oong | to take into account → the consideration |