4 ms·

Why don't we all speak in English then, and be done. Linguistic diversity is an amazing beautiful incredible thing. There are things you can say in English tha

Why don't we all speak in English then, and be done. Linguistic diversity is an amazing beautiful incredible thing. There are things you can say in English that you can't say in German, and vice-versa, or Portuguese, or Swahili, or Mandarin, or Lojban. You'll forgive me for speculating that you don't speak more than one language, or you would appreciate that.

criddell 7y ago
What's something that I can say in English that cannot be expressed in German?
- andrepd 7y ago
  No matter how good the translation of Lord of the Rings, it's never gonna be the same as reading the original English. The text is inextricably linked to the English language, the English countryside, a certain feel that cannot be entirely preserved in translation. It's probably not gonna be so bad in German, but in Italian? Forget it. 100 Years of Solitude is an absolute masterpiece. It's very difficult to put a finger on exactly why, but all agree there is a tone to it and to the way he tells the story, which usually people call "magical realism". The way it's so inexorably connected to a South American place and time, it's gonna be a different thing if you read it in English (credit though to the translators who do this incredibly difficult job in a stunning manner). The musicality and mood of the speech, for lack of a better description, cannot be accurately rendered in English. In short, it's more nuanced than "what's a sentence I can say in English that I can't say in German".
- ppseafield 7y ago
  To provide a more literal response to your comment: there's no exact word for stain (as in: on clothing) in German. You can say Fleck, but it means spot in a more broad sense. Also, a date, in the relationship sense, has been imported. Verabredung is closeish, but more like an appointment. Likewise from German there's not a direct translation for Backpfeifengesicht, a 'face that is asking to be slapped', more literally 'face slap face'. Is there a more Englishy way to say Zeitgeist that captures the same meaning? You could replace it with "spirit of the time", but it feels a bit too general and clumsy. Is there a succinct English equivalent to Schadenfreude that isn't too long or clumsy?
  - criddell 7y ago
    The stain example is super interesting to me. Would a German person that spills red wine not acknowledge a resulting stain? I don't know about Backpfeifengesicht, but both zeitgeist and schadenfreude are English words now.
    - ppseafield 7y ago
      Of course they would acknowledge a stain. I meant that the word Fleck encompasses both stains and intentional spots including blind spots, spots on a map or drawing, spots in an animal's fur pattern, and stains on one's shirt. [0] Just because you don't have an exact word for something, doesn't mean you can't recognize it or try to express it - but that distinction must come from context around the word. Conversely in English stain has to be distinguished in cotext from the words for shirt stains, wood stains (Holzbeize) and stained glass (Buntglas). Perhaps a better word to demonstrate it is Gemütlichkeit. [1] Zeitgeist and Schadenfreude are exactly words imported into English because no words in English came close to capturing these words' meanings. You'd have to say "pleasure derived from another's misfortune" every time. [0] https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Fleck.html https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Fleck.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%BCtlichkeit#Similar_words_in_other_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%BCtlichkeit#Similar_wor...
- muffin48 7y ago
  The word for "fun" exists in both German and English, but is missing from many other languages. Many social constructs don't translate well. The word "freunde" is much, much stronger than "friends", for example. "We're all friends here" doesn't really work in German, at least not in the same situations. Similarly, English doesn't really have a term for "Wohnunggemeinschaft." Puns often don't translate, which breaks translating many of the jokes in Shakespeare, for example. Going from German to English, the Rammstein song "Du has(s)t much" doesn't translate due to the puns, as does much of the writing by Yoko Tawada. Gender ambiguous things don't always translate either. The gender neutral pronoun "they" translates to "sie" in German, which is the same as the pronoun "she" but with different verb conjugations. "Trans man" or "transwoman" are usually translated in German the same as "man" or "woman". Nuance on racial issues also doesn't always translate smoothly between the two languages. I am sure there are many, many more.
fastball 7y ago
I speak 3 languages. I have tried my hand at many more. I have a great appreciation for all the idiosyncrasies and quirks of the world's languages. Right now I am learning Indonesian and was very surprised when I first learned that Bahasa does not have tenses! At this point, I'm sure many people that only speak English are well-aware of how many words there are in German that can't be as easily described in English - words like "Schadenfreude". But. I do not complain about being there not being enough demand for any of the languages I speak. Demand is demand, if there isn't great demand for German-language novels, it is not the end of the world. The answer to the question "I want make a living writing novels, but I am writing them in German and there isn't enough demand for them to really sustain myself - what should I do?" is not "force Germans to start reading more books in German instead of English". It's "learn to write books in English". Do you really find whining about the fact that native Germans prefer to read books in English over his/her mother tongue constructive?
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  A good/important book written in other than English will eventually find it's place in the international market. The sad part is that without a large enough market the writers need to get another job and continue to write in their spare time.

criddell 7y ago

What's something that I can say in English that cannot be expressed in German?

andrepd 7y ago
No matter how good the translation of Lord of the Rings, it's never gonna be the same as reading the original English. The text is inextricably linked to the English language, the English countryside, a certain feel that cannot be entirely preserved in translation. It's probably not gonna be so bad in German, but in Italian? Forget it. 100 Years of Solitude is an absolute masterpiece. It's very difficult to put a finger on exactly why, but all agree there is a tone to it and to the way he tells the story, which usually people call "magical realism". The way it's so inexorably connected to a South American place and time, it's gonna be a different thing if you read it in English (credit though to the translators who do this incredibly difficult job in a stunning manner). The musicality and mood of the speech, for lack of a better description, cannot be accurately rendered in English. In short, it's more nuanced than "what's a sentence I can say in English that I can't say in German".
ppseafield 7y ago
To provide a more literal response to your comment: there's no exact word for stain (as in: on clothing) in German. You can say Fleck, but it means spot in a more broad sense. Also, a date, in the relationship sense, has been imported. Verabredung is closeish, but more like an appointment. Likewise from German there's not a direct translation for Backpfeifengesicht, a 'face that is asking to be slapped', more literally 'face slap face'. Is there a more Englishy way to say Zeitgeist that captures the same meaning? You could replace it with "spirit of the time", but it feels a bit too general and clumsy. Is there a succinct English equivalent to Schadenfreude that isn't too long or clumsy?
- criddell 7y ago
  The stain example is super interesting to me. Would a German person that spills red wine not acknowledge a resulting stain? I don't know about Backpfeifengesicht, but both zeitgeist and schadenfreude are English words now.
  - ppseafield 7y ago
    Of course they would acknowledge a stain. I meant that the word Fleck encompasses both stains and intentional spots including blind spots, spots on a map or drawing, spots in an animal's fur pattern, and stains on one's shirt. [0] Just because you don't have an exact word for something, doesn't mean you can't recognize it or try to express it - but that distinction must come from context around the word. Conversely in English stain has to be distinguished in cotext from the words for shirt stains, wood stains (Holzbeize) and stained glass (Buntglas). Perhaps a better word to demonstrate it is Gemütlichkeit. [1] Zeitgeist and Schadenfreude are exactly words imported into English because no words in English came close to capturing these words' meanings. You'd have to say "pleasure derived from another's misfortune" every time. [0] https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Fleck.html https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Fleck.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%BCtlichkeit#Similar_words_in_other_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%BCtlichkeit#Similar_wor...
muffin48 7y ago
The word for "fun" exists in both German and English, but is missing from many other languages. Many social constructs don't translate well. The word "freunde" is much, much stronger than "friends", for example. "We're all friends here" doesn't really work in German, at least not in the same situations. Similarly, English doesn't really have a term for "Wohnunggemeinschaft." Puns often don't translate, which breaks translating many of the jokes in Shakespeare, for example. Going from German to English, the Rammstein song "Du has(s)t much" doesn't translate due to the puns, as does much of the writing by Yoko Tawada. Gender ambiguous things don't always translate either. The gender neutral pronoun "they" translates to "sie" in German, which is the same as the pronoun "she" but with different verb conjugations. "Trans man" or "transwoman" are usually translated in German the same as "man" or "woman". Nuance on racial issues also doesn't always translate smoothly between the two languages. I am sure there are many, many more.

fastball 7y ago

I speak 3 languages. I have tried my hand at many more. I have a great appreciation for all the idiosyncrasies and quirks of the world's languages. Right now I am learning Indonesian and was very surprised when I first learned that Bahasa does not have tenses! At this point, I'm sure many people that only speak English are well-aware of how many words there are in German that can't be as easily described in English - words like "Schadenfreude". But. I do not complain about being there not being enough demand for any of the languages I speak. Demand is demand, if there isn't great demand for German-language novels, it is not the end of the world. The answer to the question "I want make a living writing novels, but I am writing them in German and there isn't enough demand for them to really sustain myself - what should I do?" is not "force Germans to start reading more books in German instead of English". It's "learn to write books in English". Do you really find whining about the fact that native Germans prefer to read books in English over his/her mother tongue constructive?

onemoresoop 7y ago
A good/important book written in other than English will eventually find it's place in the international market. The sad part is that without a large enough market the writers need to get another job and continue to write in their spare time.