What does the German suffix “-träger” mean?

Wortschatz zum Thema Brille und Sehstärke

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A2 German listening practice · German · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
Brillenträger
German word-building
a “glasses-wearer” — someone who wears glasses, in one neat word

A Brillenträger is simply someone who wears glasses, from Brille (“glasses”) plus -träger. That ending comes from tragen, “to wear” or “to carry,” and it turns any object into “the person who wears or bears it.” So instead of a whole phrase, German bundles the wearer and the worn thing into a single compound noun. The feminine form is Brillenträgerin, exactly as the clip asks.

Once you spot -träger, you find it everywhere: Bartträger (beard-wearer), Fackelträger (torch-bearer), Bannerträger (banner-bearer), Namensträger (name-bearer, the person who carries a name). One suffix, a whole shelf of “the one who carries X” words. It leans slightly formal or descriptive, which is why you meet it in surveys, labels, and reports more than in casual chat.

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 German listening practice listening practice?

91.2%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common German words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday German.

General German frequency

85.3%
Top 1,000
91.2%
Top 2,000
98.5%
Top 5,000

Spoken German frequency

87.9%
Top 1,000
100%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Conversational vocabulary
This reel’s words appear more often in subtitle-based spoken-German data than in general usage, so it may feel closer to everyday conversation.

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

weitsichtig
2×
Rare / outside top 5,000
farsighted
blaulichtfilter
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
blue light filter
brillenträger
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
glasses wearer (male)
computerbildschirme
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
computer monitor

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-DE 2011 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

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