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Originally Posted by RealJames
I feel that Japanese is somewhat crude and lacks the proper vocabulary to express simple ideas, but like you said, sometimes Japanese can express things much more easily than English, I just feel it's not an even balance...
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MMM, while I agree with you about the beginning of James's statement, his statement as a whole is what I was talking about. My idea is this- couldn't it be possible for certain areas of a language to be "quantifiably" better or worse than another language?
Maybe the language's characteristic of being too vague or too specific can bog down communication (depending on the situation it can be beneficial or a hindrance).
I mean, if I can draw from one of James's examples... (about plurals)
"牛だ！"
Imagine you're looking out of a car window when you see it/them. This can be interpreted, at a basic level, in two ways.
1. "Look, a cow!"
2. "Look, cows!"
But what difference does it make? Is that extra information really needed? Yea, sure, there are times when having a clear understanding of whether something is plural or not helps, but you could argue that it is unneeded information in another situation.
In all fairness James, I think that just saying crude is... a (c)rude way to put it. I think the last half of your statement helped balance things a bit... but maybe a little more explanation would help back up your statement.