• gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    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?

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      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.