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No, these expressions exist in English, they just have a slightly different meaning. And in the case of “Entwicklung”, the English pendant “Development” even ha
by Hermel 7y ago
No, these expressions exist in English, they just have a slightly different meaning. And in the case of “Entwicklung”, the English pendant “Development” even has the exact same origin: to unwrap or unfold (the opposite of envelope). There certainly are German expressions that do not exist in English, but this list does not do a good job at collecting them.
My personal impression is that German makes it easier to express abstract impersonal goals and needs. For example, consider the word “Sachzwang” which translates to “intrinsic necessity” - i.e. something that must be a certain way to satisfy the naturally given constraints. This can for example be used in the wonderful expression: sachzwangreduzierte Ehrlichkeit. (Reduced honesty due to inherent constraints.)
Often, English has very elegant and short ways to express something similar, in that case it could simply be “spin”, as in giving an article a political spin. However, while “spin” is something done intentionally by someone (the spin doctor, another nice expression), the German variant is passive and implies that “die Sache” (roughly “the mission”) dictate the doctoring with the truth. This again illustrates what I mean by German tending to more abstract, impersonal goals.
- TillE 7y agoRight, English often does the same thing but disguises it with Latin. This first struck me with "unmittelbar", which is exactly the same as "immediate" except it feels more literal because all the components are German.
- schoen 7y agoAnd quite often it's not even a coincidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque
- joezydeco 7y agoFunny thing, I see a lot of software development job listings in German that use 'Entwicklung' as a synonym for 'Developer'.
- georgeplusplus 7y agoI dislike when people say “this cannot be translated correctly into your language” as it logically doesn’t make sense. perhaps they mean word for word? I’m sure any language can conjure up a similar feeling and combination of words. Maybe not a literal translation, but by virtue of being a human construct, any language can be crafted and molded into anything.
- missosoup 7y agoSome languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not very expressive and therefore a large number of words phrases and idioms don't have an analogue that makes sense in english. Trying to reduce them to something that makes sense is like trying to explain a joke. It defeats the purpose. Anyone who speaks >1 languages is aware of this.
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- goto11 7y ago> Some languages are inherently less expressive than others. English is not very expressive... I call bullshit. Do you have any justification for this claim?
- ulfw 7y agoDo you have any justification for calling bullshit on him?
- umanwizard 7y agoI’m not the OP, but the fact that out of the thousands of professional academic linguists, none has ever seriously proposed and defined an “expressiveness scale” suggests that we would need extraordinary evidence to accept an HN comment claiming to have done so.
- goto11 7y ago
- deng 7y agoI'm sorry but I must disagree: "sachzwangreduzierte Ehrlichkeit" is absolutely horrible. If you like this kind of talk, you'd make a good politician (or consultant).
- davrosthedalek 7y agoThe only time I could imagine hearing such a thing if somebody is making fun of politicans or consultants.
- tyingq 7y agoThe article didn't mention Schadenfreude. There's "epicaricacy" in English, but I've never heard anyone use that word. Any other attempt to explain it is several English words.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- akavi 7y agoSchadenfreude’s been an English word for a long time now.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]