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English has less words than french for a same description?
>>C'est tout? the english vocabulary isn't so rich as the French, it's very know!<<
I thought it was the opposite, I thought it was well known that English vocabulary was richer than French and also many other languages (but especially French). I have heard that French vocabulary consists of around only 100,000 words compared to over half a million in English. Of course many of these are likely to be scientific/technical terms but still. A German once told me that French was much more difficult than English at first because of the grammar, but once you get to a certain stage it's downhill because you've basically learnt it. He said English had at least twice as many words to learn, so although easy at first, it was therefore more of a struggle to become really fluent.
<< >>C'est tout? the english vocabulary isn't so rich as the French, it's very know!<<
I thought it was the opposite, I thought it was well known that English vocabulary was richer than French and also many other languages (but especially French). I have heard that French vocabulary consists of around only 100,000 words compared to over half a million in English. Of course many of these are likely to be scientific/technical terms but still. A German once told me that French was much more difficult than English at first because of the grammar, but once you get to a certain stage it's downhill because you've basically learnt it. He said English had at least twice as many words to learn, so although easy at first, it was therefore more of a struggle to become really fluent>>
Cher collègue anglophone, j'attend une preuve, qu'il y a 1 million de mots en anglais, et "seulement" 100000 en français!
Je t'ai donné la preuve que le français a un vocabulaire extrêmement riche, il a la réputation d'être une langue difficile, car il y a énormément de mots à apprendre (compare un livre Harry Potter en anglais et français, dans le français il y a 100 pages en plus!), mais ainsi le français est une langue qui est d'une précision presque parfaite, comparé à l'anglais qui a une approche plus vague... Si tu me demande une preuve je te la donnerai...
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Dear English-speaking colleague, I'm waiting your proof, that there are 1 million words in English, and " only " 100000 in French!
I gave you the proof that French has a vocabulary extremely rich, it has the reputation to be a difficult language, because there is a great deal of words to be learnt (make a comparison between the Harry Potter book read in English and French, in French there are 100 pages in more!), but so French is a language which is of an almost completed precision, compared with English which has a more vague approach... If you asks me a proof I shall give it to you...
Guest (Ant-S),
He/She said HALF a million
French Harry Potter books have more of a word-COUNT because French is less efficient and requires MORE words to say the same thing, as pointed out earlier in this thread.
English displays greater conservation of words.
« Guest » : « I have heard that French vocabulary consists of around only 100,000 words compared to over half a million in English. »
Oui, c'est bien ce dont il s'agit : une légende. Les auteurs de ces propos confondent deux choses : [1] les entrées d'un dictionnaire — [2] les mots qui existent. Il ya toujours une différence entre [1] & [2].
Dans la tradition anglo-saxonne, on met dans les dicos tout ce qu'on trouve. Dans la tradition française (infiniment plus conservatrice), les mots sont soumis à une impitoyable épuration : tout ce qu'on entend dans la rue ne se retrouve pasdans les dictionnaires.
Pour terminer, je vais reprendre tes chiffres et me livrer à un raisonnement par l'absurde. Imaginons en effet que le vocabulaire anglais compte 500.000 "mots" ; sachant qu'un tiers de ceux-ci provient du français, il y aurait donc 167.000 étymons anglais d'origine française. Toujours en suivant cette "logique", il y aurait donc 67.000 mots anglais d'origine française qui ne trouveraient donc aucun équivalent en français. Y a comme un blème, non ?
greg,
it doesn't matter whether x number of words in English are of French origin--it still remains that English has more ways to say most things than French does. Period.
<<greg,
it doesn't matter whether x number of words in English are of French origin--it still remains that English has more ways to say most things than French does. Period.>>
Mais P...., vous êtes long à la détente!
Je vous ai donné la preuve que c'était totalement faux!
Vous voulez d'autres preuves c'est ça?
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I gave you the proof that it was totally false!
You want other proofs that's right?
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English "bad, evil, wicked, sick, ill, infirm, pain, hurt, poorly, iniquity, immorality, tough, miserable, suffering, wretched, annoyance, nuisance, bother", etc. are all usually conveyed by only one word (in most cases) in French: "mal"
>>
C'est tout? the english vocabulary isn't so rich as the French, it's very know!
Synonymes de mal:
abus, acharnement, affection, affliction, amertume, application, bas, bobo, boiteux, calamité, calice, chagrin, crime, croix, cruauté, damnation, dangereusement, défaut, défavorablement, défectueusement, de guingois, déplaisir, désolation, difficulté, dommage, douleur, effort, enfer, ennemi, ennui, épreuve, fâcheusement, faiblement, faute, fiel, gauchement, imparfaitement, imperfection, incomplètement, inconvénient, incorrectement, indignité, indisposition, injustice, inopportun, inquiétude, insuffisamment, insuffisance, laid, laidement, larme, malade, maladie, maladroitement, malaise, malaisément, malencontreusement, malfaçon, malheur, martyre, mauvais, méchanceté, mécontentement, médiocrement, mélancolie, mortification, pauvrement, péché, peine, péniblement, perte, perversion, perversité, petitement, peu, pitoyable, plaie, préjudice, ravage, salement, souffrance, supplice, tare, tintouin, tort, torture, tourment, travail, tribulation, tristesse, troubles, vice, vilainement, violence.
TOTAL: 94 SYNONYMS!!
>>>>
Le français a des centaines de milliers d'autres mots qui sont "franco-français", que l'anglais n'a pas empruntés!
Par ailleurs aussi, le français a emprunté pas mal de mots à l'italien, l'allemand, l'espagnol, l'arabe...; que l'anglais n'a pas.
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French has hundreds of thousand of other words which are "purely French", that English didn't borrow!
Besides also, French borrowed many words from Italian, German, Spanish, Arabic..., that English doesn't have.
synonyms of "bien", the "good":
Absolument, achèvement, acquêt, admirablement, adroitement, à fond, agréable, agréablement, aimable, aisément, à l'aise, à merveille, amplement, apanage, à peu près, approximativement, argent, artistement, assurément, attentivement, au moins, au poil, avantage, avantageusement, avec bonheur, avoir, bath, beau, beaucoup, bellement, bénédiction, bénéfice, bien-être, bienfait, bigrement, bon, bonheur, bonnement, bonté, bougrement, bravo, capital, certes, chance, charité, cheptel, chic, choisi, chose, comme il faut, commode, commodément, compétent, complètement, confortablement, conquêt, conquête, consciencieux, considérablement, convenable, convenablement, copieusement, correct, correctement, couramment, devoir, digne, dignement, distingué, divin, domaine, don, dotation, droit, drôlement, dûment, effectivement, élégamment, élégant, éminemment, entièrement, en totalité, environ, estimable, excellemment, excellent, expressément, extrêmement, fait, fameusement, faveur, favorablement, félicité, ferme, fermement, fonds, formellement, formidablement, fort, fortune, fruit, gentiment, grâce, gracieusement, habilement, héritage, heureusement, heureux, honnête, honnêtement, honneur, honorable, honorablement, idéal, immeuble, impeccablement, intégralement, intensément, intérêt, joli, joliment, judicieusement, judicieux, juste, justice, largement, logiquement, louable, magistralement, merveilleusement, méthodiquement, moral, morale, nettement, noblement, O.K., oui, parfait, parfaitement, pas mal, patrimoine, perfection, peut-être, pleinement, possession, présent, produit, profit, profondément, propice, proprement, propriété, prospérité, prudemment, purement, raisonnablement, rationnellement, récolte, réellement, remarquablement, rente, richesse, sagement, salement, sans bavure, satisfaction, satisfaisant, secours, sélect, sensiblement, sérieusement, sérieux, service, seyant, soigneusement, soit, sortable, soulagement, souverain bien, succès, succession, sûr, sûrement, terre, totalement, tout, tout à fait, très, trop, un grand nombre, utilement, utilité, vachement, valeur, véritablement, vertu, violemment, vivement, volontiers, vraiment.
Total 200 synonyms... (I didn't give the Verlan and Vulgar words)
And english?
We can make a comparison!
ok Anti-Snobism, I'll play your silly little game for a bit...
perhaps it will awaken you to the truth...
English "synonyms" for bad
(I say "synonyms" because the ones you list above in your thread are not synonyms, they are stretches, not true equivalents):
abominable, amiss, atrocious, awful, bad news, beastly, blah, bottom out, bummer, careless, cheap, cheesy, crappy, cruddy, crummy, defective, deficient, diddly, dissatisfactory, downer, dreadful, erroneous, fallacious, faulty, garbage, god-awful, gross, grungy, icky, imperfect, inadequate, incorrect, inferior, junky, lousy, not good, off, poor, raunchy, rough, sad, scuzzy, sleazeball, sleazy, slipshod, stinking, substandard, synthetic, the pits, unacceptable, unsatisfactory, non-excellent, un-good, non-superior, unworthy, worthless, damaging, dangerous, deleterious, detrimental, hurtful, injurious, ruinous, unhealthy, un-advantageous, non-beneficial, base, corrupt, criminal, delinquent, evil, iniquitous, mean, reprobate, sinful, vicious, vile, villainous, wicked, wrong, dishonest, unjust, immoral, irreputable, virtueless, disobedient, ill-behaved, misbehaving, naughty, unruly, un-nice, moldy, off, putrid, rancid, rotten, sour, spoiled, disastrous, distressing, grave, harsh, intense, painful, serious, terrible, harmful, scathing, injurious, ailing, diseased, ill, in pain, unwell, apologetic, conscience-stricken, contrite, crestfallen, dejected, depressed, disconsolate, down, downcast, downhearted, guilty, low, regretful, remorseful, sad, upset, woebegone, inglorious, infamous, unhappy, sad, disagreeable, adverse, disagreeable, discouraged, discouraging, displeasing, distressed, gloomy, grim, melancholy, troubled, troubling, unfavorable, unfortunate, unhappy, unpleasant, effective, excellent, fashionable, sharp, stylish.
This is why I totally disregard your posted list, it is not meaningful. Data can be manipluated in many ways to suit any agenda. I am not interested in the hype, but in the truth.
I will not bore you with lists for the other words.
« guest » : « it doesn't ↔ whether ↔ ↔ of words in English are of French ↔--it still ↔ that English has more ways to say most things than French does. ↔. »
Eh non, justement, il va falloir prouver ce que tu avances. Ça ne devrait pas être trop difficile si ce que tu ***PENSES*** est effectivement la vérité.
My synonyms are CORRECT is an EU Synonyms dictionary (one of the better dictionaries):
http://elsap1.unicaen.fr/cgi-bin/trouvebis5?requete=bien&refer=%23
<<...disagreeable, adverse, disagreeable, discouraged, discouraging>>
and you?
2x Disagreeable
It's normal?
Your synonyms dictionary bugs?
The english hasn't most words than French stop lying...
Guest
I think we can see from the standard of A-S's English, that he/she is not really any kind of authority on our language.
you have as a synonym for "bien" (Adj) the words: "bonté" (NOUN)& "justice"(NOUN)...you're using an exhaustive (i.e. OVER-exhaustive) list for ALL SENSES of that word(Adjectives, nouns, adverns, etc). You didn't think of them off the top of your head.
When I say "GOOD"; you didn't think "bonté"; "justice"
c'mon dude. get real.
A synonym is a word equivalent that can be used in place of another with the same or approximate meaning. If I say "Je me sans bien" you can't say "Je me sans bonté" and MEAN THE SAME THING
"The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (OED2) includes over 600,000 definitions, following a rather inclusive policy:
It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933).
The editors of Merriam Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (475,000 main headwords) in their preface, estimate the number to be much higher. Both numbers are much greater than the 185,000 terms in German, and the 100,000 in French. The Global Language Monitor, after combining definitions in the OED2 with those unique to other dictionaries, estimates that there are approximately 990,000 words in English." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Language#Number_of_words_in_English)
English has more words than French, get over it. I want to emphasize though, that this is *NOT* a value judgement. Having more words or fewer does not change the intrinsic value of a language. It could be argued that having fewer words makes French a more subtle language, having to differentiate meanings by context; or you could say that English is more subtle because each of the different meanings has its own word. It doesn't make a difference.
Thanks Josh for that information
Josh Lalonde : « English has more words than French, get over it. »
Non, tu n'as pas compris. Relis deux ou trois messages plus haut. Tu confonds toujours le lexique avec les dictionnaires. Prétendre que l'allemand ne dispose que de 185.000 mots (quelle précision d'ailleurs...) est une idiotie qui fait florès dans le monde anglo-saxon.
Josh Lalonde : « I want to emphasize though, that this is *NOT* a value judgement. Having more words or fewer does not change the intrinsic value of a language. »
Tout à fait d'accord. C'est d'ailleurs la position que défendent certains ayatollahs du purisme de l'Académie française pour lesquels disposer de plus de 100.000 mots est une horreur absolue. L'ennui c'est que ça fait longtemps que toutes les langues ont plus de 100.000 mots !
C'est tout?
"C'mon?" J'arrive!
French has 2 600 000 words.... (only the "édition de 1835", now there are much)
The first completed "encyclopédie" was french
35 volumes, and 20 000 000 WORDS (XVIIIth century)
<<English has more words than French, get over it.>>
I'm more neutral, I'm sure that French and English have same number of words.
Your 900,000 words are english words of course, obsolete and archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage, slang, but expressions too....
In french you can't realize the number of Verlan, vulgar and popular words have...
As English, every day one word is make.
the recents words are:
Chelou(Verlan)=Louche (Fr.trad)
Zarbi= Bizarre
Choud=came from arabic "faire le gai"
Ouf = fou
la gera = la rage
Un neski = un skinhead
Un zen = le nez
Un rebeu = un beur
Téma ! = mate ! (au sens de "regarde !")
La tess (ou la téci) = la cité
La bacaz = la kasba
Le babtou = le toubab
Le genar (prononcez gen-ar) = l’argent
Une teuf = la fête
La zic (ou zicmu) = la musique ...
...
other example:
"Louchébem" {largonji des louchébems} (« jargon des bouchers »), XIXth century, argot words.
boucher = louchébem
cher = lerche (employé communément dans sa forme négative: pas lerche) ou lerchem
douce = loucedé ou loucedoc
femme = lamfé
fou = loufoque
gigôt = ligogem
monsieur = lesieum
patron = latronpuche
Portefeuille = larfeuille
sac = lacsé
Many more argotic languages exist...
The total and official number of words in the french language is around 700,000 and with technical words as english; 1,000,000:
http://www.weblettres.net/spip/article.php3?id_article=552
But the good question isn't "how many number of words french and english language have", but "how many number of words french and english guys use?" answer= only 5,000 words....
With all this, We don't count the number of Creole words, variants of French or English which exist all over the world 5, the 2 languages have involved with the autochtonous languages) where they became established...
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