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I'm a native French speaker and fluent in English (and of course, as luck would have it, I'm going to stick grammar mistakes in this post) Some have pointed ou

I'm a native French speaker and fluent in English (and of course, as luck would have it, I'm going to stick grammar mistakes in this post) Some have pointed out that French is almost always longer. It's a bit more complicated than that. French uses a wider vocabulary than English, and uses many different words to convey different connotations. Words, as a result, tend to be longer, because they carry more information. English tends to be much more modular and flexible. Nouns can be made into adjectives, adverbs and verbs rather easily, and "prepositions" drastically alter the meaning of verbs. The end result is that English can be much shorter than French when trying to be concise. A short UI message will always be much shorter in English than in French. However, when conveying nuanced ideas, I believe they will be much closer in length, with perhaps a small advantage for French.

Nursie 12y ago
>> French uses a wider vocabulary than English This seems an extraordinary claim, given that English is generally considered to have the largest number of words of any modern language (mostly because we just steal them).
- seszett 12y ago
  I believe that's the difference between "uses a wider vocabulary" and "has a wider vocabulary". I would think that literary French generally uses a wider vocabulary than English though, at least because repeating words in French is to be avoided at all costs, while it's more acceptable in English.
- zizee 12y ago
  After a point, having more words in a dictionary does not necessarily result in the average person using more words in their communication. I would think that education/environment would have a bigger effect. That said, I would interested if the grandparent could provide more info supporting their statement, as I don't know the truth one way or the other and would like to know more.
  - murbard2 12y ago
    This is mostly based on my own observations, I don't have a very specific study on the matter. Here's a data point though. Many French students learn in English class, as an anecdote, that "shallow" has no equivalent in French. If there were many other words like this, there would be little point in relating this anecdote. "Shallow" is one of the very few words in English with no French equivalent. French words with no English equivalent? I encounter them all the time. There are different words for the mouth and leg of an animal versus human. (gueule et patte vs bouche et jambe). There's a common word for the lump of flours that form in dough (grumeau). There's a word for a sandwich with a slice of bread on only one side (tartine). There's a single word for brown sugar (cassonade). There's a different word for hair on your head and hair on your body (cheveux, poils), etc. Here's a nice list http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml English words with no French equivalent? Shallow and Serendipity come to mind. I'm googling but I can't find many other at the moment, apart from very technical terms.
    - barrkel 12y ago
      English is a bit more subtle. It has inherited a lot of French vocabulary from the Normans, as well as retaining Anglo-Saxon roots. So it often has more words for things other languages have fewer words for, with English having more shades of meaning. Take happy for example: joyous, joyful, gay, merry, gleeful, etc. I counted some 50 words in the thesaurus under happy, but many of them only translate to joyeaux or gai according to my dictionary checks (although there are also plenty for French, not as many). English tends to have a lot of words that are close synonyms but with different evocations. It's possible to converse English in language almost completely of French origin, or speak plainly in the common tongue with older words. The former sounds flowery; the latter tends to remind one of the Bible.
      - murbard2 12y ago
        http://www.synonymo.fr/synonyme/heureux http://www.synonymo.fr/synonyme/heureux
- pash 12y ago
  Word-use is roughly Zipf-distributed [0] in most all modern languages, so there's not much difference in the number of commonly used words (as long as you ignore basic differences like the existence of articles and the richness of word inflection). An analysis of English and French texts on Project Gutenburg shows that 93 words account for half of English usage, versus 89 for French [1]. English has fewer words in the middle of the distribution (696 versus 795 at 70%) and in the near tail (6,428 versus 9,050 at 90%, and 14,736 versus 21,231 at 95%), but more in the extreme tail. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law 1. http://1.1o1.in/en/webtools/semantic-depth http://1.1o1.in/en/webtools/semantic-depth
  - pcrh 12y ago
    >50th percentile of word use at 93 words for English and 89 for French [1]. If I understand the meaning to that phrase correctly, it seems to be an extraordinarily useless measure
  - murbard2 12y ago
    > 14,736 versus 21,231 at 95% So about 50% more words for French. The very extreme tail is less interesting because it captures the size of the dictionary, and words very rarely used. I think the exponent of the tail would be the most relevant metric, but I can't open those pdf. Can someone plot the inverse CDF and make a log-log plot?
frenchenglish 12y ago
I'm also a native French speaker, but I'm bilingual ( British mother ). French definitely neither has nor uses a wider vocabulary than English, if only because English keeps growing while modern French stopped evolving a while ago. The only kind of French which does evolve is spoken French, which bears little resemblance to written French nowadays. Now, for some reason, there's a widely propagated myth in France which is that English in particular is a <em> very poor </em> language : English is supposed to have a very limited vocabulary, and no possibility to express subtle ideas accurately. I have no idea where this myth comes from - maybe the old French-English rivalry - , but I guess it is the source of your belief.
- murbard2 12y ago
  What do you make of the statistics quoted below which shows that, at the 95th percentile, French uses 50% more words than English? Compare http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml and http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_french.shtml http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_french.shtml I see many errors in the second list, do you see many in the first? I do not consider English a poor language at all. I find it extremely flexible and expressive, whereas French just comes with a very large standard library.
shutupalready 12y ago
> When conveying nuanced ideas, I believe they will be much closer in length, with perhaps a small advantage for French. I've looked in bookstores at expert translations of French novels to English, and English novels to French, and in either case, the English is shorter. This seems contrary to your claim.
- murbard2 12y ago
  1) It could be the translator's choice to drop a connotation rather than go through a cumbersome periphrasis to express it faithfully. 2) English words tend to be much shorter, which is reflected in the book's length.

Nursie 12y ago

>> French uses a wider vocabulary than English This seems an extraordinary claim, given that English is generally considered to have the largest number of words of any modern language (mostly because we just steal them).

seszett 12y ago
I believe that's the difference between "uses a wider vocabulary" and "has a wider vocabulary". I would think that literary French generally uses a wider vocabulary than English though, at least because repeating words in French is to be avoided at all costs, while it's more acceptable in English.
zizee 12y ago
After a point, having more words in a dictionary does not necessarily result in the average person using more words in their communication. I would think that education/environment would have a bigger effect. That said, I would interested if the grandparent could provide more info supporting their statement, as I don't know the truth one way or the other and would like to know more.
- murbard2 12y ago
  This is mostly based on my own observations, I don't have a very specific study on the matter. Here's a data point though. Many French students learn in English class, as an anecdote, that "shallow" has no equivalent in French. If there were many other words like this, there would be little point in relating this anecdote. "Shallow" is one of the very few words in English with no French equivalent. French words with no English equivalent? I encounter them all the time. There are different words for the mouth and leg of an animal versus human. (gueule et patte vs bouche et jambe). There's a common word for the lump of flours that form in dough (grumeau). There's a word for a sandwich with a slice of bread on only one side (tartine). There's a single word for brown sugar (cassonade). There's a different word for hair on your head and hair on your body (cheveux, poils), etc. Here's a nice list http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml English words with no French equivalent? Shallow and Serendipity come to mind. I'm googling but I can't find many other at the moment, apart from very technical terms.
  - barrkel 12y ago
    English is a bit more subtle. It has inherited a lot of French vocabulary from the Normans, as well as retaining Anglo-Saxon roots. So it often has more words for things other languages have fewer words for, with English having more shades of meaning. Take happy for example: joyous, joyful, gay, merry, gleeful, etc. I counted some 50 words in the thesaurus under happy, but many of them only translate to joyeaux or gai according to my dictionary checks (although there are also plenty for French, not as many). English tends to have a lot of words that are close synonyms but with different evocations. It's possible to converse English in language almost completely of French origin, or speak plainly in the common tongue with older words. The former sounds flowery; the latter tends to remind one of the Bible.
    - murbard2 12y ago
      http://www.synonymo.fr/synonyme/heureux http://www.synonymo.fr/synonyme/heureux
pash 12y ago
Word-use is roughly Zipf-distributed [0] in most all modern languages, so there's not much difference in the number of commonly used words (as long as you ignore basic differences like the existence of articles and the richness of word inflection). An analysis of English and French texts on Project Gutenburg shows that 93 words account for half of English usage, versus 89 for French [1]. English has fewer words in the middle of the distribution (696 versus 795 at 70%) and in the near tail (6,428 versus 9,050 at 90%, and 14,736 versus 21,231 at 95%), but more in the extreme tail. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law 1. http://1.1o1.in/en/webtools/semantic-depth http://1.1o1.in/en/webtools/semantic-depth
- pcrh 12y ago
  >50th percentile of word use at 93 words for English and 89 for French [1]. If I understand the meaning to that phrase correctly, it seems to be an extraordinarily useless measure
- murbard2 12y ago
  > 14,736 versus 21,231 at 95% So about 50% more words for French. The very extreme tail is less interesting because it captures the size of the dictionary, and words very rarely used. I think the exponent of the tail would be the most relevant metric, but I can't open those pdf. Can someone plot the inverse CDF and make a log-log plot?

frenchenglish 12y ago

I'm also a native French speaker, but I'm bilingual ( British mother ). French definitely neither has nor uses a wider vocabulary than English, if only because English keeps growing while modern French stopped evolving a while ago. The only kind of French which does evolve is spoken French, which bears little resemblance to written French nowadays. Now, for some reason, there's a widely propagated myth in France which is that English in particular is a <em> very poor </em> language : English is supposed to have a very limited vocabulary, and no possibility to express subtle ideas accurately. I have no idea where this myth comes from - maybe the old French-English rivalry - , but I guess it is the source of your belief.

murbard2 12y ago
What do you make of the statistics quoted below which shows that, at the 95th percentile, French uses 50% more words than English? Compare http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml and http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_french.shtml http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_french.shtml I see many errors in the second list, do you see many in the first? I do not consider English a poor language at all. I find it extremely flexible and expressive, whereas French just comes with a very large standard library.

shutupalready 12y ago

> When conveying nuanced ideas, I believe they will be much closer in length, with perhaps a small advantage for French. I've looked in bookstores at expert translations of French novels to English, and English novels to French, and in either case, the English is shorter. This seems contrary to your claim.

murbard2 12y ago
1) It could be the translator's choice to drop a connotation rather than go through a cumbersome periphrasis to express it faithfully. 2) English words tend to be much shorter, which is reflected in the book's length.