Submitted by Rolf F. Katzenberger on Sun, 2008-05-11 21:47.
You're right, it is estimated that English has about 1.5 times more words than German. Actually, English is so "popular", in a way, that Germans sometimes repurpose English (!) words for everyday things, in a ridiculous fashion. E.g., a cell phone is called "handy" over here...
Most Germans learn English in school. In my case, it was for 7 years. Ever since, I needed to read lots of books in English (or wait 2-3 years for a translation, which isn't really an option), for professional reasons.
However, I guess it shows that I'm not a native speaker, my sentences are often too long and complicated (hey, I'm German ;-)), I lack many idioms and don't always manage to get the word order right, especially with adverbs. Well, as long as people understand what I'm trying to say... :D
Words...
You're right, it is estimated that English has about 1.5 times more words than German. Actually, English is so "popular", in a way, that Germans sometimes repurpose English (!) words for everyday things, in a ridiculous fashion. E.g., a cell phone is called "handy" over here...
Most Germans learn English in school. In my case, it was for 7 years. Ever since, I needed to read lots of books in English (or wait 2-3 years for a translation, which isn't really an option), for professional reasons.
However, I guess it shows that I'm not a native speaker, my sentences are often too long and complicated (hey, I'm German ;-)), I lack many idioms and don't always manage to get the word order right, especially with adverbs. Well, as long as people understand what I'm trying to say... :D