Counting the number of words in a language -- or even defining what qualifies as a "word" -- is notoriously difficult, but sometimes I feel that Japanese has lots more words for everyday things and concepts than English does. It seems like in cases where English has just one word, Japanese has half a dozen, and it seems as if I'm forever coming across new words for very basic things -- words that I would have thought by now I should be familiar with. Is this reasonable, or am I just imagining it? I'm wondering if I just don't notice the variety in English because all the words are already so familiar. Do any native Japanese speakers here remember when they first learned English? Did it seem as if there were "too many words"?