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A german native speaker corrected part of a sentence I wrote from "dem zen Buch" to "dem Zen Buch". I couldn't quite get it. Why do we capitalize the adjective here?

tryst with freedom
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3 Answers3

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The word "zen" is not an adjective in German, there's just the noun or name "Zen" standing for Zen buddhism ("Zen-Buddhismus"), see for example the German book title "Zen und die Kunst ein Motorrad zu warten".

Accordingly, a book about the topic of Zen would be a "Zen-Buch" in German. Some people in this SE might even prefer writing it as "Zenbuch".

As another example, here's a web site about how to create a "Zen-Garten".

HalvarF
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  • There is even an entry in the German wikipedia about space characters in composita: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leerzeichen_in_Komposita – Residuum Apr 01 '23 at 13:58
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As others already said: German has no adjective "zen". But there is the noun "Zen" which is the name of a kind of Buddhism. So this the reason, why it has to be capitalized.

Also in English the word "zen" isn't an adjective. It is a noun there too. If it was an adjective, you could also use is like every other other adjective:

I have a nice book. The book is nice.
I have an expensive book. The book is expensive.
I have a zen book. The book is zen.

The last sentence ("The book is zen") makes no sense (which is typical for zen, but not for grammar), so "zen" can't be an adjective.

It's more like these examples:

I have a math book. It's a book about math.
I have a beer book. It's a book about beer.
I have a zen book. It's a book about zen.

So the grammar is the same in English and in German. The only difference is that in German all nouns are capitalized. And this difference makes native German speakers more aware of whether a word is a noun or not.

But there is another difference, which makes the "correction" of you German native speaker still wrong:

The terms "history book", "beer book" and "zen book" work perfect in English, because in English you have this connecting space between the parts that make up the whole term. In German you can't use a space for this purpose. If you do it wrong and use a space, this space is often called "Deppenleerzeichen" (in English: "idiot's space"; Depp = idiot, Leerzeichen = space character)

You have two possibilities to do it correctly:

  • with a hyphen

    Ich habe ein Mathematik-Buch. Es ist ein Buch über Mathematik.
    Ich habe ein Bier-Buch. Es ist ein Buch über Bier.
    Ich habe ein Zen-Buch. Es ist ein Buch über Zen.

  • as a compound word

    Ich habe ein Mathematikbuch. Es ist ein Buch über Mathematik.
    Ich habe ein Bierbuch. Es ist ein Buch über Bier.
    Ich habe ein Zenbuch. Es ist ein Buch über Zen.

So, in dative case it must be either "dem Zen-Buch" or "dem Zenbuch".

Note, that a hyphen is not a dash (hyphen is "Bindestrich" in German; binden = to connect, Strich = stroke, line. But dash is "Gedankenstrich"; Gedanke = thought, idea). A dash is longer than a hyphen, and when you use a dash in German, you leave a space before it and a space after it, and you use two dashes to enclose an idea. But hyphens appear without spaces in the middle of words:

hyphen (Bindestrich):
"Der Verletzte wurde mit Mund-zu-Mund-Beatmung wiederbelebt."

dash (Gedankenstrich):
"Georg schrieb den Brief – niemand wusste warum – mit grüner Tinte."

compare the lengh: 1st line 10 hyphens with dots between them, 2nd line 10 dashes with dots:

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
–.–.–.–.–.–.–.–.–.–

Alina
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    Arguably, zen is an adjective in colloquial English usage. By way of example, you can validly say "more zen than" in a comparison. I can even find books using the comparative form "zenner" or superlative "zennest". See also the Merriam-Webster entry: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Zen – Eiríkr Útlendi Mar 31 '23 at 17:19
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    Yeah, not to detract from the rest of the answer, and maybe we shouldn't get too far into English here, but I've definitely used "zen" as an adjective, meaning "exemplifying the teachings of Zen". Also, "a zen book" and "a book about Zen" have very distinct meanings. – JonathanZ Mar 31 '23 at 17:58
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"Zen" is used as a proper name here, not as an adjective. You could also write "dem Zen-Buch" with dash.

EFrank
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