Yeah, Germans, like the French and Spanish, speak differently to close friends, children and underlings than to superiors or strangers. At least the French and Spanish separate the world into masculine and feminine. The Germans add a neuter gender with all kinds of resultant endings depending on what part of speech one is using - der, die, das; den, die, das; dem, der, dem (I think); however two or more of anything is always feminine.
One Spanish gentleman remarked that he liked coming to America because of our egalitarian way of addressing people - everyone was "you".
The Germans do have a pretty logical way of forming nouns even if it results in some long words. Like you said - Metalwarenfabrik tells you exactly what it is. A TV is a Fernseh - far see, a truck is a Kraftwagen - craft or work wagon, Luftwaffe means Air weapon, Flugzeug - fly thing, is a plane. Werkzeug - work thing, is a tool, Spielzeug - play thing, is a toy. We still use plaything ourselves.
I was talking to a PH in South Africa and he wanted to look through my binoculars but couldn't remember the English word so asked for my "far see lookers".
I'm kind of a language nerd if that wasn't obvious...
