do U think EN needs more words?

Leena   Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:59 pm GMT
To 2992:

I have no knowledge or Romanian language. Are you talking about someone "longing" for the other? We have a Finnish verb "kaivata" for that use.

Minä kaipaan sinua. = I miss you.
Eric   Sun Feb 11, 2007 4:02 pm GMT
It can't hurt a language to have more vocabulary, but it's not like English is doing poorly in this departement.
Benjamin   Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:20 pm GMT
« my friends here... thanks for those descriptions for "to miss", but I wasn't asking about the meaning and how to use "miss"...Just please read carefuly: I was asking if there is a specific word to have same meaning like "dor/ a duce dorul cuiva (nu a duce dorul dupa ceva... care e echivalent cu "missing")" in english. »

Yes, there is. The verb is 'to miss'. You say 'I miss you', 'he misses his mother', 'I will miss them' etc.
Valeria   Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:54 pm GMT
Every language needs more words.But every language creats its words regarding the needs of the people of the nation.For instance, in Vietnamese there are 100 different words for kinds of "rice" while Eskimos use many words over 25 for the word "snow" in English.
2992   Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:32 am GMT
probably "longing" is very near. However, isn't only this word I'm taking about. There are many other words as well (I'm not saying extremely alot of them). I was trying to find out if somebody else also knows these kind of single word in oone language which doesn't have a single word equivalent in EN. And going forward, considering those words, if EN needs some more words or not. I'm not a proffesional in languages, but I hava the feeling that EN needs some more words in everyday usage. I mean, there are too many single-words like "missing" which are used to express soo many different things/actions/etcetc...
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"I hate spam" - yeah, sure...
Benjamin   Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:17 am GMT
« probably "longing" is very near. »

It's similar, but you actually say 'I miss my mother' etc.

« I mean, there are too many single-words like "missing" which are used to express soo many different things/actions/etcetc... »

Native English speakers do not appear to have a problem with distinguishing between the different meanings of the verb 'to miss' — there is not the confusion which you seem to suppose. As a non-native learner of English, you simply have to learn the different ways in which that verb can be used.

« I was trying to find out if somebody else also knows these kind of single word in oone language which doesn't have a single word equivalent in EN. And going forward, considering those words, if EN needs some more words or not. I'm not a proffesional in languages, but I hava the feeling that EN needs some more words in everyday usage. »

I can actually think of many single words in English where French does not have a single word equivalent. For example, both 'to speak' and 'to talk' are both usually translated as 'parler', and both 'to say' and 'to tell' are both usually translated as 'dire'. However, I do not think that the French language needs to invent new words in order make these unnecessary distinctions which exist in English.
Eric   Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:34 pm GMT
"I can actually think of many single words in English where French does not have a single word equivalent. For example, both 'to speak' and 'to talk' are both usually translated as 'parler', and both 'to say' and 'to tell' are both usually translated as 'dire'. However, I do not think that the French language needs to invent new words in order make these unnecessary distinctions which exist in English."

I agree with this. It's very easy to distinguish "je parle français" (I speak French) and "je te parle" (I'm talking to you). The mere fact that I "parle" *to* someone differentiates it from "parle"-ing a language. ;-)
Benjamin   Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:16 pm GMT
Likewise, if I say 'I miss my mother' in English, it is obvious that it means that I regret the absence or loss of my mother, because:

— it doesn't mean that I fail to hit or strike my mother as a target;
— it doesn't really mean that I fail to catch, meet or encounter my mother unless I put a specific time or place with it, and it wouldn't really make sense in the simple present tense anyway;
— it doesn't mean that I fail to take advantage of my mother;
— it doesn't mean that I fail to be present for my mother;
— it doesn't mean that I notice the absence or loss of my mother;
— it doesn't mean that I escape or avoid my mother;
— it doesn't mean that I fail to perceive or understand my mother;
— and it doesn't mean that I am somehow unsuccessful in the context of my mother
Franco   Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:11 pm GMT
Benjamin, you are assuming the impossible. It depends on the context. Maybe I am holding a berreta m1942 in my hand firing at my mother, failing to maim her. Maybe my mother has not shown up for aerobic class, and I fail to see her. Maybe I intend to meet my mother at 1443 hours but often fail to arrive before she has quit the scene.

So one sentence tells us nothing.
Benjamin   Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:52 pm GMT
« Maybe I am holding a berreta m1942 in my hand firing at my mother, failing to maim her. »

I agree that technically it could also mean that. However, it would sound strange to say that in the simple present, except in a literary context where someone was writing a story in the present tense in the first person.

« Maybe my mother has not shown up for aerobic class, and I fail to see her. »

Not really. At least in the dialect of English which I speak, one would not say 'I miss my mother' to mean that.

« Maybe I intend to meet my mother at 1443 hours but often fail to arrive before she has quit the scene. »

As I mentioned above, you'd need to mention time and/or place in conjunction with that if you wanted to give the sentence that meaning. Like, 'I miss my mother every day at the shops'. But if anything, that example would be even more ambiguous than simply saying 'I miss my mother' on its own, because I could be regretting the absence of my mother every time I go to the shops.
Interpony   Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:09 pm GMT
<<Benjamin, you are assuming the impossible. It depends on the context. Maybe I am holding a berreta m1942 in my hand firing at my mother, failing to maim her. Maybe my mother has not shown up for aerobic class, and I fail to see her. Maybe I intend to meet my mother at 1443 hours but often fail to arrive before she has quit the scene. >>

There is no way a native English speaker would ever mistake "I miss my mother" for one of these. You would very rarely use this tense to express those ideas.
Adam   Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:58 pm GMT
Speaking of how concise English is to other European languages, here is a letter to the editor of The Times newspaper which appeared in today's copy -


"Sir, I used to think that the French language was very precise, and argued the case with my brother while on holiday in France a few years ago.

I gave up when we passed a cinema showing 'The Horse Whisperer'. The French title is 'L’Homme qui murmurait à l’oreille des chevaux.' "

Phil Elston, Beckenham, Kent
Adam   Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:01 pm GMT
"Finnish is the most difficult non-indoeuropean agglutinative language. "

Like English, it has no grammatical gender.

But it also has no definite or indefinite articles.

It's difficulty is in the fact that its nouns have FIFTEEN cases.
2992   Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:51 am GMT
<both 'to speak' and 'to talk' are both usually translated as 'parler', and both 'to say' and 'to tell' are both usually translated as 'dire'.>
in romanian:
to speak, to talk, to say, to tell = a spune / a vorbi / a zice / a spune /
& a grăi (pretty old, nobody is using it, except east of country)

BTW, how's your understading for foreign languages when it cames of diferentiating a language with male/female/neutre for nouns and comparing with a language (like EN) where you cannot find them... ?

PS: 'The Horse Whisperer' = "Calul şoptitor" ... :P

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"I hate spam" - yeah, sure...
2992   Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:33 am GMT
what's the En equivalent for "gratis"/free of charge? Just one word.