> English is very nice for describing abstract concepts
I (native German speaker) find German much nicer for describing abstract concepts. Alone for the fact that one can often add a suffix to the stem of a verb to express "the abstract process of doing this", for example
etikettieren (to label) -> Etikettierung (the process act of tagging)
Don't say there is an English noun for it ((the) labelling) - such a concept also exists in German (das Etikettieren). But there is a subtile difference between a noun describing the activity (das Etikettieren) and a noun describing the abstract process of doing the activity (die Etikettierung). This difference is in my opinion nearly impossible to express in English and is one reason why writing abstract things is IMHO easier in German than in English.
German words in my opinion tend to be much more precise (and used in a much more precise way) than their English counterparts. I have read a long time ago that the translation English -> German is particularly hard for automatic computer translation since English is very sloppy in its usage of words while German is very exact.
We also have the fact that you can join nouns in Germany to develop rather abstract concepts that are nearly impossible to write down this way in English, like the infamous Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (a law with such a name actually existed in Germany).
Also because of the precise German punctuation and structure of interleaved sentences (in subordinate clauses the finite verb is at the end) it is very easy to express interleaved sentences in German (up to three ranks is still quite understandable) that would be nearly impossible to understand in English.
> We also have the fact that you can join nouns in Germany to develop rather abstract concepts that are nearly impossible to write down this way in English
I can understand not being able to describe a concept at all, but I don't understand why it's so important to be able to do it in a single word. Wikipedia says Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz is a shortening of Gesetz zur Übertragung der Aufgaben für die Überwachung der Rinderkennzeichnung und Rindfleischetikettierung, but I don't understand the benefit of shortening it to a single word versus shortening it to a shorter phrase or acronym.
I mean, USA PATRIOT Act, ridiculous as it is, is an easier shortening of Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act than a single word that itself is half as long as the phrase it's replacing.
> but I don't understand the benefit of shortening it to a single word versus shortening it to a shorter phrase or acronym.
To give a comparison: One can in old versions of Java simulate higher-order functions by writing an abstract interface and a class implementing it. An instance of such an object is passed as the function to a Java implementation, say, of foldl.
This is possible - but it can be done in a much more convenient way like Haskell does.
Now imagine how much more "expressive" the English language would become if such very abstract concepts could be used as a single-noun subject or object in an English sentence. The advantage is similar to the difference between the Java vs. Haskell implementation of foldl.
I (native German speaker) find German much nicer for describing abstract concepts. Alone for the fact that one can often add a suffix to the stem of a verb to express "the abstract process of doing this", for example
etikettieren (to label) -> Etikettierung (the process act of tagging)
Don't say there is an English noun for it ((the) labelling) - such a concept also exists in German (das Etikettieren). But there is a subtile difference between a noun describing the activity (das Etikettieren) and a noun describing the abstract process of doing the activity (die Etikettierung). This difference is in my opinion nearly impossible to express in English and is one reason why writing abstract things is IMHO easier in German than in English.
German words in my opinion tend to be much more precise (and used in a much more precise way) than their English counterparts. I have read a long time ago that the translation English -> German is particularly hard for automatic computer translation since English is very sloppy in its usage of words while German is very exact.
We also have the fact that you can join nouns in Germany to develop rather abstract concepts that are nearly impossible to write down this way in English, like the infamous Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (a law with such a name actually existed in Germany).
Also because of the precise German punctuation and structure of interleaved sentences (in subordinate clauses the finite verb is at the end) it is very easy to express interleaved sentences in German (up to three ranks is still quite understandable) that would be nearly impossible to understand in English.