Say It in German: Computer Program

posted in: German, German Vocabulary, Informatik | 0

IPA: [kɔmˈpjuːtɐpʀoˌɡʀam]

das Computerprogramm (pl. Computerprogramme) – the (computer) program

Nothing too surprising here, in that the word Programm is used, with the Computer- added to the front.

This is a compound word (ein Kompositum, in this case specifically ein Determinativkompositum).

In German, as well as other Germanic languages, it is common to form new words by compounding them together. You may have seen articles here and there about the longest word in German, or rather, what used to be the longest until it wasn’t.

The picture above shows the source code (der Quelltext, or der Quellcode – a direct translation from English) of a computer program.

What is the difference between the two? I have to admit, the definitions in my head are rather murky, so I did some searching.

The definition of a program is a sequence of instructions for a computer (“Folge von Anweisungen für einen Computer”, according to Wiktionary). The human-readable code is not understandable by the computer and has to be translated into instructions that it can understand.

A program is also something complete, while any portion of the source code for the program can be referred to as such.

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