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I provided a trivial and concrete example: мат. English is inherently incapable of expressing мат. And English being my strongest language, I'd say no, I don't
by missosoup 7y ago
I provided a trivial and concrete example: мат. English is inherently incapable of expressing мат.
And English being my strongest language, I'd say no, I don't think it's because I know it least well of the three.
Perhaps this is just something that doesn't make sense to people who only know one language, but it self-evident to multilinguals.
If you want a source, click TFA - a list of German expressions that don't exist in English. The discussion here on whether or not it's a great list, but no one disagrees there are phrases that don't exist in English.
- efaref 7y agoSeems to me like мат is just "yo mama".
- goto11 7y agoBut that goes both ways. If we accept that "urspung" does not translate directly to "origin", then obviously "origin" does not translate directly to "ursprung" either. So I don't see how this proves one language is more expressive than another? Unless you can somehow prove that any English word or phrase have a direct German translation but not vice-versa.