Language Grammar Comparisons

The cluster discusses comparisons between English grammar and other languages like Slavic, German, and Polish, focusing on analytic vs. synthetic structures, inflection, cases, word order flexibility, and expressiveness.

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Keywords

AFAIK CJK SVO f.e gingersoftware.com SOV en.m nautil.us VSO TIMTOWTDI english languages language word words grammar express grammatical sentences order

Sample Comments

indubitably Mar 17, 2017 View on HN

What's impossible about that? Many languages have complicated inflection patterns like that.

szabba Oct 11, 2014 View on HN

It probably has something to do with out languages having more grammatical cases than English (which, arguably, has two, though it's possible to only use one).

disabled Apr 21, 2021 View on HN

They have a good command of language in general, and especially when it comes to expression. In Slavic languages, there are often a lot of words that have the exact same meaning (compared to English or romance languages), but you have to learn individually how to use the right one to capture the moment best for your situation. Also, at least for the Slavic language that I speak (not a native speaker), it is clean, direct, and concise with respect to communication and expression, in comparison to

thelastname Nov 14, 2020 View on HN

German, grammar is extremely regular, sometimes it sounds strange "baletttanzerin". Polish would be Perl5 - TIMTOWTDI grammar is extremely flexible, that even the experts have trouble understanding perfectly correct sentences. English would be js, seems regular but it is not. But that's just my (eastern) eurocentric perspective.

rvense Mar 17, 2025 View on HN

It's not more complicated if you know the language.Language is a tool. People will use their language for what they need it for. If there isn't a word they'll make one up or steal it. This is absolutely universal. I know you can dig up any number of texts that say English is special, but they're all wrong."Languages differ not in what they can express, but in what they must express" as Roman Jakobson phrased it. (The "must express" refers to grammar

eimrine Aug 21, 2023 View on HN

fixed order simplifies grammar/orfography. look at russian moving verbs - thats what happens w/o the order. and not all forms are even achievable! f.e. russian can not say 'i will win' w/o using hacks such as 'i will get win'.

2143 Dec 22, 2021 View on HN

Sanskrit could also be like Haskell.Structured. Very precise rules. Yet nobody speaks it in practice.Also while on the topic, may I point out that there are some things you could say in some languages that are nearly impossible (AFAIK) to say in English.Let me give an example.(Okay how do I — for the benefit of all of you — express something in English that I'm trying to prove is impossible to express in English?).Consider the statement: Joe Biden is the 46th President of the

mh-cx Dec 1, 2018 View on HN

Reminded me of analytic vs synthetic languages:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_languagehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_language

bdamm Sep 29, 2023 View on HN

Sadly, the English language is not precise enough for me to express what I wanted in a compact way. Recently I have been learning Ukrainian and there is a language where it is easy to precisely express this kind of thought due to the many different forms of "and", word terminations indicating expected noun context, and different rules about punctuation.

jdmichal Jun 1, 2017 View on HN

In that case it's because they are both relatively analytic languages.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language