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Okay then, I'm asking it. Because other than relating to languages, I don't see how the question helps.

I've studied Spanish (in highschool) and Japanese (for years) and while there were some new concepts (in grammar and sentence structure, mainly) they don't apply to anything but languages. And I'm not likely to try creating a language, and I've never had trouble expressing myself in the one I have.




Yeah, I meant it just from a linguistic point of view. The original question was about "different approaches and concepts" and this clearly applies to human languages as well. Some use gender for some purpose, some don't, some express posession in one way, some in another, one language uses suffixes where the other has prepositions, etc. etc. etc. I didn't say anything about difficulty of expressing oneself in any language.


> I've never had trouble expressing myself in the one I have.

What's the english word for 'schadenfreude'? or 'entrepreneur'?


The way to say those in English is "rejoicing in the misfortune of others" and "business owner."

After edit: the saying cherished by linguists in English is "'loanword' is a calque, and 'calque' is a loanword," which I find helpful for remembering which word is which.


"business owner" != "entrepreneur"

Its not exactly uncommon for people to own businesses and to then employ people to run the company for them. This is pretty much how most long established public companies work.


'loanword' is a calque, and 'calque' is a loanword

That's a great line! I never heard it before.


Note that you had to translate a word with a phrase. That's an important difference.


3 other people already answered with the right answer, but I think it's worth expanding on it.

Some governments actually try to restrict the usage of loan words and try to keep the language 'pure'. I think this is death for a language, and I'm glad English adopts new words so readily.

Someone recently told me that they thought that almost all the really interesting creative works were in English these days because English is so expressive, where many other languages have only 1 word for a thing. The language he used as a reference was Spanish, which he is fluent in. The word he used as an example was 'garbage'. He said in Spanish he had only ever used 1 word for it, but in English we have 'trash', 'junk', 'refuse', 'waste', etc, etc.

I don't know if that's really why, but it's an interesting thought.


> I don't know if that's really why

The words 'trash', 'junk', 'refuse', 'waste' all carry different connotations. Be forewarned, my information is largely relative to Wisconsin. Other regions of the US may use the words differently.

If applied to a person: trash usually refers to someone that's disreputable in some grievous way, waste would refer to some that squandered some talent or resources. Junk wouldn't usually apply to a person but junkie means a drug addict. Applying refuse to a person would be silly, but probably be .

If applied to stuff that's thrown out: Trash is a generic term for anything that's thrown away. Waste is usually consider excess like banana peels. (waste and trash are largely interchangeable in conversation, the distinction isn't usually important) Junk would refer to material possessions that are no longer wanted like an old couch. No one would call banana peels junk. Refuse is a pretentious/higher class term for trash used by rich old ladies.

I don't believe refuse is in the common usage any more. I've never heard it used outside of Star Trek 6 and some older movies. It's meaning is similar to "trash" but it can also refer a place where trash is stored.

Most of english is this way. Words are extremely flexible and can be used in a variety of ways with many meanings. Context is extremely important. I'm not sure how other languages work, I only speak english.


But that's the point! Spanish has that 1 word (which I don't know) that he has used in every situation. In English, he uses all those different words, depending on what slant he wants to put on it. English is -much- more expressive. (At least in that case.)


On the other hand, Spanish has two different verbs for "to be" and also two for "to have".

In general, verbs in Spanish are way more expressive than in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_verbs


The English words for 'schadenfreude' and 'entrepreneur' are 'schadenfreude' and 'entrepreneur' respectively. Or did you think the rest of the language came to us on stone tablets?


'schadenfreude' and 'entrepreneur' respectively. English uses a large number of words taken from other languages. Rendezvous for example.


"schadenfreude" and "entrepeneur"


I should elaborate that the point I guess I was trying to make is that a lot of the time we think we have no trouble expressing ourselves "in English" we aren't strictly using "English" to do it.


The follow-up point everyone is trying to make is that your idea of 'strict English' is bogus. It's a bit like complaining that there's no English word for 'forest' because we stole it from the French, or veranda, which we stole from Hindi.




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