English is a wordy language!

We have compared the word-counts of the 522 translations of stories [1] from other languages into English on our site with the following results:

– ALL OF THE TRANSLATIONS OF RUSSIAN AND GERMAN TEXTS HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE WORDS IN ENGLISH THAN IN THE ORIGINAL

The detailed lists of the texts involved in this study can be seen below.

There is a real possibility that the very act of translating high-quality literary texts such as those involved here necessarily entails a certain necessary supplement of words in the target language to properly convey the subtlety and finesses of the finest authors, although we have seen that that was not the case in a non-insignificant percentage (17%) of the translations into English from Guy de Maupassant, as fine a writer as ever was.

However allowing even a 5% error of margin, so to speak, that nevertheless leaves both the German and Russian languages – both with a score of 100% of English translations with a greater word-count than the original texts – well out in front in terms of literary power and impact per word, we do believe.

Thus our conclusion as per the title of this study:

– WHEN IT COMES TO LITERATURE, ENGLISH IS A SIGNIFICANTLY WORDIER LANGUAGE THAN GERMAN AND RUSSIAN

TRANSLATIONS OF GERMAN STORIES INTO ENGLISH

TRANSLATIONS OF RUSSIAN STORIES INTO ENGLISH

TRANSLATIONS OF FRENCH STORIES INTO ENGLISH