Compound Nouns (10 of 10): “Do you want chicken or fish?”

flight attendant.png

One of the aspects of the Chinese language which I really like is the way it creates nouns by combining two simple nouns. These are called ‘compound nouns’. For example, in Chinese, a flight attendant [see the picture above] is called: ‘air-sister.’ (‘kong-jie’). Well, that woman who helps you on the plane is … sort of … a sister, and you are both in the air. So, the name, while not being perfectly logical, makes some sense.

Hey, but in English, the word also makes sense – actually, maybe more sense – and it’s a compound noun, too! Add the two nouns: ‘flight’ and ‘attendant’, and you have a bigger noun. Yes, English also uses lots of compound nouns. Let’s practice some more of these.

Match a noun in A with a noun in B to form a compound noun.

A B
hearing nature
human conference
class account
blood mail
bank reunion
press fish
junk aid
shell group

By the way, the answers to the previous post are night school, sleeping bag, storm front, blood pressure, contact lenses, eyelash, passageway, and fire extinguisher. You can find out more about me at www.aisielts.com .