I'm a complete linguistics noob but am curious as to whether some concepts and ideas are harder to express in some languages than others, and if this is the case can it affect the culture or behaviour of its speakers? For example, I could summise that a language in which adjectives are rare or complicated to use may not develop a rich tradition of poetry, but would this be a case of culture influencing language or language influencing the culture of its speakers? I speak English and a little German and work in an engineering field where technical instructions often come in English, German & French. I notice that the amount of text required to convey the same information can vary greatly and I often identify words in French that I recognise as having a very broad meaning whereas the English or German equivalents appear to be much more specific. Are some languages inherently more suited to some tasks than others and if so can this influence the culture or actions of its speakers, or is language always flexible enough to accomodate any concept without placing its speakers at any disadvantage? Perhaps there is a language in which I could have said all the above in a few words with no ambiguity whatsoever, but its probably not English.