Does German have less words than English?
Does German have less words than English?
3. The German vocabulary. The German language consists of about 5.3 million words – with a rising trend. This means, the German language contains eight times as many words as the English language.In the everyday conversation, we use much less words: only 12.000 – 16.000 words including about 3.500 foreign words.
Does English have more words than German?
Steven Frank, the author of The Pen Commandments claims that English has 500,000 words with German having about 135,000 and French having fewer than 100,000….Counting the Words in the Dictionary.
| Language | Words in the Dictionary |
|---|---|
| English | 171,476 |
| Russian | 150,000 |
| Spanish | 93,000 |
| Chinese | 85,568 |
How much longer are German words than English?
When it comes to the number of letters used per word, German is at the top with an average count of 6.380 letters. Conversely, with an average of 5.195 letters per word, English terms are by far the shortest. What’s noticeable is that the words in the legal text generally contain more letters than in our blog article.
Does German have a lot of words?
German is definitely known for its ϋber-long words. Many words in the German language are formed by combining two or more words, known in English as compound nouns. The meanings of the individual words have a direct bearing on what the compound noun means.
Is German an old language?
German (as the standard High German you learn in school in its current form) is pretty young, a good 100 years. The dialect continuum it belongs to reached its “modern” stage in the late 17th century, so that’s ~350 years. Its ancestor is about 1500 years old. It really depends on what you mean by “German language”.
Why are there so many Germanic words in English?
Norman and Latin words didn’t displace much vocabulary, or subtract anything, but rather they added to this early language. Even today, 80 of the 100 most common words in English are Germanic in origin. These most basic, most frequently spoken words in English and German are from the same roots, making them all extremely similar.
How similar are the English and Germanic languages?
Even today, 80 of the 100 most common words in English are Germanic in origin. These most basic, most frequently spoken words in English and German are from the same roots, making them all extremely similar. Give or take a few spelling and pronunciation differences, they’re practically the same.
Does English really have more words than other languages?
Have you heard language experts say that English has more words than other languages? The claim is made but it’s practically impossible to verify. Steven Frank, the author of The Pen Commandments claims that English has 500,000 words with German having about 135,000 and French having fewer than 100,000.
What is the best way to learn German?
When starting to learn German, concentrate on the basics and remember that they’re almost the same as their English counterparts. The words with the strongest similarities are often simple, functional words, like the, be, my and would which are used for almost 50\% of all spoken English.