I’m writing a poem and trying to find the right word to express a sea of white roofs – as in a city whose houses are covered in snow. I combined the nouns Dächer and See, which seemed to be the most logical choices. Does this work in a semantic sense?
-
3Yes it does, but why did you remove the poem? It's nice and gives the context, which is always a good idea. Welcome to the site!– StephieCommented Aug 13, 2015 at 22:50
-
Für das Versmass wäre es vielleicht besser, das so eine Zeile runterzunehmen und weisse wegzulassen: die Häuser sind bedeckt/so dass der Dächersee. Oder bin ich da zu rigide?– Ralph M. RickenbachCommented Aug 14, 2015 at 6:41
-
In an even more poetic language, you can avoid the combination of words all together, though valid: dass der weissen Dächer See.– Ralph M. RickenbachCommented Aug 15, 2015 at 7:09
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
Both "Dächersee" and "Dächermeer" would be comprehensible and acceptable words in the context of a poem. Outside of poetic language, a similar word, "Häusermeer", is actually even somewhat usual.
While "die weiße Dächersee" and "das weiße Dächermeer" would accurately describe the snow-covered roofs (and possibly fit with your poem), a translation that is a bit closer to the English version you provided would also work - "die See aus/von weißen Dächern" or "das Meer aus/von weißen Dächern".
Dächermeer
would sound appropriate to me. I would translate the sea to das Meer, and not der see. See means lake when you do not us the pronoun die.
-
3And die See means the sea (= ocean). It's actually even a touch more poetic than Meer.– StephieCommented Aug 14, 2015 at 7:29
-
1But have you ever heard anything like Wolkensee, Dächersee etc.? Wolkenmeer is commonly used where I come from...– WayneEraCommented Aug 14, 2015 at 7:40
-
1@WayneEra : German allows the almost unlimited generation of composed words and while "-meer" might be more frequent, there is nothing that would prohibit the use of "-see".– StephieCommented Aug 14, 2015 at 7:45
-
1+1, just to do something about the -1 that i think is inappropriate.– BurkiCommented Aug 14, 2015 at 8:04
-
1@Stephie It may have been female in the original version, but cureently, there is no hint in the question wether it was meant to be male or female. And while the answer is not exactly a good one, it still seems valid to me. Plus, i thought it might help encourage a fairly new member to stay around :-)– BurkiCommented Aug 14, 2015 at 8:21