I want to disagree on German. It isn't verbose. We've got several words where there isn't an equivalent in pretty much any other languages. Including Schadenfreude und Torschlusspanik (the feeling that you are getting older l, can't find a partner and will die alone).

The same EU legal text has in German 22.118 words Vs English 24.698.

The making me cry part, that's fair. Overcomplicated, could be worse.

[–] dirkgentle@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I think word count is not the best metric precisely because of what you mention. "Krankenversicherungskarte" is one word vs the three word "health insurance card", but they convey the same information in roughly the same amount of characters.

Overall I don't find German particularly verbose, only sometimes a small phrase is condensed into a single word.

[–] Lysergid@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

I don’t know german but it seems to be more logical to have one word for “health insurance card” since it describes one class of objects. Better than spelling 3 nouns where one partially describes what object is and other nouns act like clarification

[–] Pingudiem@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Hm?

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