I’m proud to have learned German as a second language, because it’s complex and precise, not because of any preexisting affinity for German speaking people.
As someone learning German right now, I can agree on complex but I’m not sure precise is very accurate. There seems to be a lot of assumptions based on context to know what one means. Maybe a more educated person could chime in, but I have not felt like the German language has made things more precise in communicating concepts (but full disclosure I’m at the A1 level going into A2).
Written German is incredibly precise, IMO (I have C2 German, teach it as a second language at a university in Germany, and am currently getting a masters degree in German instruction). I came from a background in legal writing in English, and the amount of references that each sentence after the first in a text needs to the sentence before it was still staggering. The grade on my first thesis paper was an unwelcome surprise, but it can be learned.
Just attempting to understand what you wrote here, are you saying that German writing requires a massive number of references to past statements to be understood and that somehow makes it more precise?
Well, yes. I can write a series of sentences in English without building in references to explain exactly how they relate to each other, but German writing explicates their relationship to each other.
Thus there’s technically more vagueness in written English, though the reader makes the leap (if the writer is an effective communicator).
As a small example, I went back and forth about including “thus” in the above sentence. I don’t think it’s necessary even in formal, written English, but it would be in German.
I’m proud to have learned German as a second language, because it’s complex and precise, not because of any preexisting affinity for German speaking people.
As someone learning German right now, I can agree on complex but I’m not sure precise is very accurate. There seems to be a lot of assumptions based on context to know what one means. Maybe a more educated person could chime in, but I have not felt like the German language has made things more precise in communicating concepts (but full disclosure I’m at the A1 level going into A2).
Written German is incredibly precise, IMO (I have C2 German, teach it as a second language at a university in Germany, and am currently getting a masters degree in German instruction). I came from a background in legal writing in English, and the amount of references that each sentence after the first in a text needs to the sentence before it was still staggering. The grade on my first thesis paper was an unwelcome surprise, but it can be learned.
Just attempting to understand what you wrote here, are you saying that German writing requires a massive number of references to past statements to be understood and that somehow makes it more precise?
Well, yes. I can write a series of sentences in English without building in references to explain exactly how they relate to each other, but German writing explicates their relationship to each other.
Thus there’s technically more vagueness in written English, though the reader makes the leap (if the writer is an effective communicator).
As a small example, I went back and forth about including “thus” in the above sentence. I don’t think it’s necessary even in formal, written English, but it would be in German.
I suppose it’s more specifically pride in a first language.