Humans think and envision with images and vague notions that are internalized. Sometimes this
panoply of thought and ideas are connected to words and vocabulary, but in raw form, our instinctive
thought process or mindset is independent of words and vocabulary. Hence the language used to
convey or speak to oneself depends on the underlying language. The languages of the world are not
all inherently, constructively the same. Some are noun dependent. Some are Verb dependent. Some
have different constructs for transitive or passive voices. Some use Direct and indirect object
declarations very heavily, and others no so much. Some have the prepositions incorporated in the
verb. Some do not use plural forms of nouns.
An English speaker for instance, would say "I feel bad." Pronoun, present-tense-verb, adverb. A
French speaker however would say "Je me sens mal" or "I myself feel bad." Pronoun,
Direct-Object, present-tense-verb, adverb. In French the verb is more powerful. It needs a direct
object, because if you
say "Je sens mal" that means "I smell bad." Yikes. You don't wanna say that.
This is because in French/Latin the notion of "feel" or internal intuitive sense is connected to the
primal word for
"smell."
I use Word Reference frequently to look
up words in other languages online. Wordreference.com is a real good one. The examples are awesome, being aided by
native speakers from all over the world who supply the insight. Today, I am looking up the word for
"everywhere" in French because I could not remember it (it is "partout" ... "for/involving everything"
). I came across the following statement in French.
Un oubli important ? Signalez une erreur ou suggérez une amélioration.
Which means, "Is there something that was forgotten that is important? Tell us about the error or
suggest something more beneficial."
First of all, notice how much is conveyed in French in a few short words. Second of all, wow, like
English speakers would never say this. They would say
Did we forget something? Let us know about an error or suggest how we can do better?
Notice how noun/pronoun dependent English is. Starting a sentence
with a verb in French is common, but unlike English, it does not need any help from other language
devices. In English, the sentence has to involve more words than the verb in order to
be effective because verbs are weak -- "let us know about" (4 words) versus "Signalez" (1 word) , or
"did we forget"
(2 verbs) as against "Un oubli important" (no verbs). The literal translation of "Un oubli
important" is "A forgotten item important" which needs a verb in English.
The verbs in English come
before the direct object. You hear the action before the object because the verb cannot incorporate
the object in English like it does in French. Hence the 3 word verb phrase "suggérez une
amélioration " is translated into
"suggest how we can do better" in English because English needs both two other verbs (can do) and a
qualifier word "how" since the English verb cannot incorporate the object or implied idea on it's
own. The word "how" was necessary to convey the same information because the word "suggest" is
weaker in English than the French
Which means that the action is more important than the individual in the English language. In
English the person is subsidiary to the action. The verb is just a portal between noun/pronoun and
stuff. It has no inherent power except in a literary sense when creative English speakers use the
language to it's utmost potential.
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