Nominalstil vs. Verbalstil — Style Switching for Better Writing
C1Academic German loves to freeze verbs into nouns. Learn when to stack nouns, when to let verbs breathe, and how to convert mechanically between the two styles.
Two styles, one language
Nominalstil packs actions into nouns — 'die Durchführung der Untersuchung', 'die Feststellung, dass ...' — long chains of nouns marching shoulder to shoulder. Verbalstil lets real verbs do the work: 'nachdem die Untersuchung durchgeführt worden war'. Neither is wrong: German scholarship and law adore noun chains because they compress and depersonalize, while journalism and good non-fiction prefer verbs because a reader's brain likes a subject that actually does something.
Beispiele — examples in context
Wegen der anhaltenden Überlastung des Netzes kam es zu Ausfällen.
Because of the persistent overloading of the network, outages occurred.
Weil das Netz dauerhaft überlastet war, fiel es zeitweise aus.
Because the network was permanently overloaded, it temporarily failed.
Converting between them
The conversion is mechanical once you see that every nominalization is a frozen verb waiting to be thawed. '-ung' nouns return to their verbs ('Durchführung' → 'durchführen'), 'die Feststellung' becomes 'man stellt fest', and 'nach der Prüfung' becomes 'nachdem geprüft wurde'. Going the other way, keep the case logic: the object of the verb turns into a genitive or 'von'-phrase after the noun, and 'um ... zu' purposes become 'zur' or 'zum' — 'um die Luftqualität zu verbessern' becomes 'zur Verbesserung der Luftqualität'.
| Nominalstil | Verbalstil |
|---|---|
| nach der Durchführung der Analyse | nachdem die Analyse durchgeführt worden war |
| die Feststellung, dass Fehler auftraten | man stellte fest, dass Fehler auftraten |
| bei einer Änderung der Rechtslage | falls sich die Rechtslage ändert |
| zur Verbesserung der Luftqualität | um die Luftqualität zu verbessern |
Beispiele — examples in context
Die Studie kam zu dem Ergebnis, dass sich die Erholungszeiten verkürzt haben.
The study came to the conclusion that recovery times have shortened.
When to use which
Use Nominalstil where compression is the point: abstracts, summaries, legal texts, and when you need a noun phrase as a grammatical subject. Switch to Verbalstil whenever you want pace, clarity or a human agent doing something on stage. Fair warning: German academic prose is infamous for Nominalstil-Syndrom — sentences in which nothing happens for twenty words. At C1, the skill is not producing either style; it is switching between them on purpose, like shifting gears instead of driving the whole trip in second.
Beispiele — examples in context
Die Zunahme des Onlinehandels hat zum Rückgang der Ladenmieten geführt.
The increase in online retail has led to a decline in shop rents.
Weil immer mehr Menschen online einkaufen, sinken die Ladenmieten.
Because more and more people shop online, shop rents are falling.
Durch die Einführung der Mietobergrenze sollte der Markt entlastet werden.
Through the introduction of a rent cap, the market was to be relieved.