Re:Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is takin...
by eftychis on Friday July 27, 2018 @08:13PM
(#17630613)
I meant examples of expressiveness over German.
Edit: You were comparing English with other languages and implied it is more or as expressive as the majority of languages (or at least the ones you are familiar with). Thus my question.
Re:Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is takin...
by krylon on Saturday July 28, 2018 @03:21AM
(#17632049)
I cannot think of a a good example right now, but as a native German speaker, I do sometimes find myself wondering how to express a certain thought in German.
English grammar feels more flexible to me than German, and English seems to be more suited for colorful idioms.
Re:Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is takin...
by geff82 on Saturday July 28, 2018 @05:03AM
(#17632317)
Fellow German here. From a grammatical standpoint German is a really flexible language while English isn‘t. I only recently found out about it during my Latin studies (selftaught) and comparing Latin to German and English. The problem with expressing a thought in German might be a side effect of the ubiquity of English in so many fields: we are just used to think in English terms that it becomes a second nature.
Re:Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is takin...
by krylon on Saturday July 28, 2018 @09:48AM
(#17633148)
English has so many idioms that are nearly impossible to translate elegantly. "go to town on somebody", for example; a good part of learning English is not just learning grammar and vocabulary (although those are necessary), but learning all these idioms (which is kind of an open-ended process).
Shakespeare, Vladimir Nabokov, Walt Whitman
I believe that English has many problems, from crazy grammar rules to horrendously inconsistent spelling. But to say it is not expressive is absurd, and suggests that you haven’t read any great English literature. This is not to say that the cultures you mentioned and many other have not produce their own great literature, of course.