How do you feel about the Latin languages in relation to English?

Question

I speak Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and English

One thing I feel about the English language is that comparing it to the Latin languages, I find it a very indirect language. Do you know what I mean?

Anglophones say "How old are you?"
The Latin people say "How many years are you?" Quanti anni hai? Cuantos años tienes?

I also hear the word "I don't know" more in English than in the Latin languages.

C'est aussi une question d'humeur. Observez comment l'humeur de ma question change dès que je traduis en français. Je crois que c'est une langue bien meilleure pour la réflexion que l'anglais.

There's a clip where Jacques Derrida says that English is a very utilitarian language and I think that English speakers quite embody that when they speak. 
Customer Service means a totally different thing in other countries. In America and UK, it is an entire phenomenon of its own.

Nel caso del ritmo e del tempo, senti come la lingua italiana suona alle orecchie. Nietzsche dice che Machiavelli è meglio leggere in italiano.

Now when you read Machiavelli in English, it has almost an 'academic' vibe. 
When you read it in Italian or even in Spanish, it sounds all the more juicy and crafty.

How do you feel about all of this?

? · Accepted Answer

I thought Latin speakers would say "Quot annorum es?"

Anonymous · Answer

Every language  has its own feel, its own spirit.

What sticks out in English and French to me as a speaker of Dutch and German are the things they don't have words for, and the distinctions they don't make

Chi girl · Answer

"How do you feel about all of this?"  I feel it's much ado about nothing.  Every language works perfectly well for the natives speakers of it.

And btw, regarding 'I also hear the word "I don't know" more in English',  "I don't know" isn't a word.

Jimmy C · Answer

I disagree with the quote about English being utilitarian. It has a massive amount of words in it, which has contributed to so much great literature and poetry being written in English. 
English is an expressive and versatile language simply because it has so many other languages mixed in with it.

Anonymous · Answer

There are probably hundreds of different English dialects, so it's not possible to say that English sounds more like this or that. People that say things like "this language sounds more beautiful than that one" are rarely fluent in any of these languages. More likely, they have just heard a couple of sentences in them in a narrow context.

As for Latin-based languages, I think that they're more similar than different, like if you know two or three you can understand the rest. I personally find certain features that only exist in some Germanic languages much more interesting, including the phrasal verbs in English and the separable verbs in German.

οικος · Answer

Part of what you feel is from English being a Germanic language, although with massive borrowings from the Romance languages. Just be happy that it isn't German, where you have to read through several lines of text to get to the verb.

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How do you feel about the Latin languages in relation to English?

6 Answers