Will the efficiency of Spanish beat or fundamentally change the language of America??

a reply to: Lumenari

I have a plan.

We all put in $50 and the first person to spot the next name of OP gets the whole cash pool.

In the event they do not return we all win (and you all forget the $50 you gave me).

a reply to: JustJohnny

Oy vey

I only speak English. If I see something where someone is speaking Spanish and it gets translated into English in a subtitle or something, they'll sit there and talk for 30 seconds and the translation is a short sentence. That seems horribly inefficient to me.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
I only speak English. If I see something where someone is speaking Spanish and it gets translated into English in a subtitle or something, they'll sit there and talk for 30 seconds and the translation is a short sentence. That seems horribly inefficient to me.

That's because of the way it's structured and the lack of specific vocabulary.

There are a bunch of synonyms in English that all carry different connotations and shades of meaning. A house can be a shack or a shanty or mansion or a cottage, cabin, etc. They're all basically houses, but depending on which word you choose, they all conjure different images and have different connotations attached. Just by picking on word, you accomplish a lot in your writing.

Spanish doesn't have that variety in it's words.

You have one word for most of those - casa, and then to depict the meaning, you add adjective phrases to add your connotations, description, etc. This is the house of the poor built of logs to try to explain a little cabin in the woods and I didn't even add phrases to tell you where it is only that it's poor/small and built of logs to try to tell you it's a small cabin.

That's why Spanish has so many words and Spanish speakers speak at light speed but the actual translation is so short.

I think the lesson here is that the more complex and difficult to learn a language is, the more efficient and precise it will turn out to be because you then ultimately will have that flexibility and variety to work with.

The kicker is having to learn it to begin with.

a reply to: JustJohnny

Well, as someone who works in engineering, I can safely tell you English isn't going anywhere, and certainly won't be replaced by Spanish or any other language. We do a tremendous amount of international work, and almost all developed countries demand technical documents be written in English. The reason for this is, English is far more technically descriptive than virtually any other language. This is one of the reasons English is such a difficult language for non-English speakers to master. (Chinese is very difficult too, but for different reasons). Even China demands technical documents to be developed in English. If the documents need to be translated from there, any errors in the resulting translations are at the risk of the translator, not the Owner.

Spanish may be more "efficient" (which I don't personally agree with), but under no circumstances is it more descriptive. Quite the contrary. Many words in Spanish are recycled to mean something different depending on how they're used. Therefore, there can often be no literal translation. This is not the case with English. Even words which sound the same have different meanings. For example "knead", "need" and "kneed" all sound exactly alike, but mean completely different things. In many languages only a single word would be used for all three of these, and the listener / reader would have to understand the context of the statement to determine the meaning of certain words. When it comes to legal disputes and court battles, this ambiguity is a serious problem.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
I only speak English. If I see something where someone is speaking Spanish and it gets translated into English in a subtitle or something, they'll sit there and talk for 30 seconds and the translation is a short sentence. That seems horribly inefficient to me.

That's because of the way it's structured and the lack of specific vocabulary.

There are a bunch of synonyms in English that all carry different connotations and shades of meaning. A house can be a shack or a shanty or mansion or a cottage, cabin, etc. They're all basically houses, but depending on which word you choose, they all conjure different images and have different connotations attached. Just by picking on word, you accomplish a lot in your writing.

Spanish doesn't have that variety in it's words.

You have one word for most of those - casa, and then to depict the meaning, you add adjective phrases to add your connotations, description, etc. This is the house of the poor built of logs to try to explain a little cabin in the woods and I didn't even add phrases to tell you where it is only that it's poor/small and built of logs to try to tell you it's a small cabin.

That's why Spanish has so many words and Spanish speakers speak at light speed but the actual translation is so short.

Still doesn't seem very efficient if you ask me. If it takes them 30 seconds to say what would take five seconds in English, I think English is better.

a reply to: JustJohnny

I would say that you first travel the world a bit and then learn a few more languages,
at least beginners level....

a reply to: BrianFlanders

I thought I was describing why Spanish isn't efficient -- it takes a ton of words to try to describe what it takes one word to do in English.

a reply to: JustJohnny

The language of Shakespeare would never be the same if spoken in Spanish.

The very thought.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: BrianFlanders

I thought I was describing why Spanish isn't efficient -- it takes a ton of words to try to describe what it takes one word to do in English.

Ah OK. Fair enough. I thought probably that was what you were doing but I wasn't sure. I thought maybe you had another point you were trying to make and I just wasn't getting it.